


The Serpent and His Prom Queen

by SereneCalamity



Category: Archie Comics, Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Motorcycle Gang, Bartender!Betty, Biker!Jughead, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Minor Jughead Jones/Sabrina Spellman, Recreational Drug Use, Violence, mechanic!betty, past relationship, serpents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2018-10-31 15:33:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 47,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10902243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SereneCalamity/pseuds/SereneCalamity
Summary: Back in high school, they had nothing in common. He was the son of the president of the South Side Serpents, and she was the pretty blonde cheerleader who got voted Prom Queen. Nearly seven years later, she's back, and Jughead isn't letting her slip through his fingers again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So ever since I watched the last episode of Riverdale, I felt the insane urge to write a Bughead story where Jughead was part of a motorcycle gang. If you've read some of my other stories in different fandoms, you'll know I've written them before. Pretty much inspired by a bunch of trashy biker novels and Sons of Anarchy. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, and I apologize for any mistakes, I've only just finished this chapter and wanted to get it up.

Betty Cooper took in a deep breath through her nose as she shifted the gears in her car and pressed her foot down on the accelerator, picking up speed as she reached the edge of the town. She had been back in Riverdale for all of one day, and was already feeling the urge to escape, far too many memories rushing at her every time she walked around a corner. It wasn't that they were bad memories, they were just...A lot.

She had been back to Riverdale exactly once since leaving the town two days after she graduated from high school, and that was for her mothers funeral, a year after she had left. Even then, she had only been in town for a couple of days, and they had all been spent either at her childhood home, or at the church where the funeral was being held.

Now, she was back because her sister, Polly Cooper, was pregnant. Polly hadn't asked Betty to come back, knowing how much Betty enjoyed her life in Los Angeles, but her best friend and room mate was coming back as well, given it was her brother that had actually gotten Polly pregnant. But Polly had always been there for Betty when she had needed her big sister, and given their brother, Chic Cooper, was traipsing somewhere across Iceland, and both of their parents had now passed away, she was the only family Polly had for support. It wasn't meant to be a permanent thing, but it was going to be long enough that Betty and Cheryl Blossom had given up their apartment, and Betty had handed in her resignation at the garage she had been working at.

She was regretting that now.

Because it had only taken one whole day for her to run into the one person she had been hoping to avoid.

Or at least avoid until she was steady on her feet, settled back in the town where she had grown up.

Forsythe Pendleton Jones III.

More commonly known as Jughead Jones.

Of course she was going to run into him, she knew that it was going to happen, but that really hadn't prepared herself when she actually saw him. She had been waiting for a coffee at a coffee shop that hadn't been there when she was younger when she had heard the familiar roar of motorbikes coming down the street outside. She had tried to stop herself from turning around to look out the window of the coffee shop, but she couldn't help herself when the girl beside her pretty much had heart eyes popping out of her head.

And there they were.

Four of the South Side Serpents, with Jughead Jones at the front.

She had only caught a glimpse of his face underneath the helmet that he was wearing, but that had been enough for her to turn on her heel, completely forget about her coffee, and storm out the other door of the coffee shop to where her car was parked outside and practically flee the scene.

It was stupid, because she was almost twenty-five, and she shouldn't be running from a guy that she hadn't seen since she was eighteen. But even though she had lived in Los Angeles for the past six and a half years, and she hadn't seen Jughead since the day that she had driven out of Riverdale in that shitty car she had managed to buy with the money she had saved working at her parents local newspaper store, and he had followed her to the towns border. He had then followed her a little further, but despite the tears that had been pouring down her face, she showed no sign of slowing down and refused to wind down the window, despite Jughead shouting at her to do so.

Now, Betty was sitting like an idiot, down at Sweetwater River where she and Kevin Keller, the sheriffs son, used to come when they were in high school, before he had been shipped off to live with his mother in their senior year.

She didn't have a shitty little car anymore, and she wasn't some lovesick eighteen year old either.

She was strong, she was not in love, and she was now living in the same town as Jughead Jones, so she was going to have to face him sooner or later.

Betty took in a deep breath as she tipped her head back and let the breeze wash over her face. The whole place felt exactly the same, exactly the same way that she had left it when she had left town. When she had been driving here, she had passed a couple of cars parked in areas that they thought were hidden, and there were teenagers inside, kissing and groping and probably doing a whole lot more as well.

Staying here wasn't going to be a forever thing.

She had gotten out of here before, and she could do it again.

She was a fully qualified diesel mechanic, and despite some looks that she got from men who came into the garage she worked at who looked as though they wanted her _in_ their car rather than working _under_ it, she loved what she did. The garage that she had been working at in Los Angeles had been great, and one of the guys that she worked with had been someone that she had been seeing on and off. It wasn't serious, more like a friends with benefits kind of arrangement, and it was good—they didn't let it interfere with their job, and they managed to keep it quiet from the rest of their colleagues. She got on with her boss, and she had definitely been upset to leave the place, but they had told her that she was welcome back if she decided to return to the city.

Betty was just thinking about getting back into her car when her phone rang, and she pulled it out of her pocket. A photo of Cheryl flashed on the screen, the gorgeous red head pulling the fingers at her—it was taken on a drunken night when Kevin had come into the city.

"Hey, babe," Betty greeted her friend as she answered the call. "What's up?"

"Where are you, Elizabeth?" Cheryl asked, and Betty cringed. Cheryl only called her by her full name when she wasn't happy with her. "You were meant to be here half an hour ago, so that you could help me pick out a pram for Pollykins and my Jason." Betty made a face, a little bit because of how sickening Cheryl could get with her cutesy nicknames, and a little bit because she didn't realize how long she had been at the river. "Are you gonna your cute ass over here, or am I going to do this myself?"

"No, no, I'll be there soon," Betty assured her.

"Oh? You didn't get distracted by a certain motorcycle riding gang member, did you?" Cheryl asked, her voice turning coy, and Betty rolled her eyes.

"No," she answered, her voice a little more abrupt than it needed to be. "I was—I'll be there soon, okay?"

"Okay," Cheryl sung out and ended the call. Betty tucked the phone into her back pocket of her denim shorts and walked from the edge of the river back to her car. It was a sleek, black Camaro, that she had brought a couple of years ago with some of the insurance money that had been released to them after their mother had passed away. It had been her one splurge, while Polly had put it into renovating their parents house. It had been when her and Jason were dating but not living together, and Polly had been planning on staying in their parents house permanently. Now, however, with her and Jason together, she was going to sell their childhood home at some point, while Jason was buying a big house on the edge of town to begin their lives together.

Betty turned on the car, feeling the car purr under her hands as she rested one hand on the gear stick, the other on the wheel. She had brought the car second hand, at a pretty good price as well, and done it up herself in her spare time. A few coats of paint as well, and she was absolutely gorgeous.

It was kind of funny, really, the fact that she had always thought about becoming a journalist when she was younger, but then when she started hanging around the garage with Jughead when she was about fifteen...She had realized how much she liked sticking her hands in the engine, twisting and turning things, making it come alive under her nimble fingertips. And then here she was, ten years later, and a qualified mechanic.

Betty managed to push Jughead, and the many other things that she did in the garage, while his brothers in the motorcycle gang were getting drunk out the front, to the back of her mind as she drove back into town, slowing down as she reached the main street. They lived completely separate lives now—even more than from when they were in high school—and he really didn't have any place in her thoughts.

Him, and his leather jacket, and his shaggy black hair, and those beautiful red lips, and those sinful eyes, and his muscular forearms and—

She slammed on the brakes as she nearly drove straight past the expensive baby boutique where she had been meant to meet Cheryl. There was an angry toot from the car behind her as she jerked her car into a parking spot on the road. She grabbed her wallet from the passenger and got out of the car, heading into the boutique, where the red head was waiting for her. She didn't notice the exact man she was trying not to think about who was standing on the opposite side of the street, half hidden down the alley, watching her with soft, blue eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I'm so glad you guys are looking forward to this story! Please just keep in mind that it is quite AU, a lot of the characters are going to be acting/talking in different ways than they would in the show or the comics. There's going to be swearing, recreational drug use, probably a bit of violence and, of course, sex scenes. Just wanted to give you guys a heads up!

Archie Andrews tipped his head to the side as he watched with barely a flicker of interest on his face as Tina Patel went down on the girl who was laid out on the table in front of her. She was dressed in an extremely tacky maids uniform which was only there to tease the viewers and would be gone soon enough, and the girl who was on the table was completely in the nude. The blonde on the table was letting out loud, exaggerated moans, pulling at Tina's hairs. When he was a teenager, this would have been an absolute wet dream, to have a girlfriend who ran a porn studio, but now it was all been there, done that.

In Tina's case, it was _literally_ been there, done that.

Not all the Serpents felt the same, though, and even though Veronica Lodge usually ran a tight ship, which meant absolutely no viewers in the building while they were filming, she was making an exception this afternoon.

Namely because the brothers had been dealt with a couple of hard blows in the past week, and they needed a bit of a pick-me-up. Besides, it wasn't that the girls cared when the Serpent brothers were in the studio, lounging on the couches that lined the walls, it was more that they actually got distracted, forgetting their floozy one-liners or angling their bodies _toward_ the brothers rather than the camera.

"Come _on_ , Tina," Veronica snapped with a roll of her dark coloured eyes. "Actually look as though you want to be here."

"Yeah, well, it's kind of difficult when her fingernails are like fucking talons!" Tina snapped, the mood completely shattering in the room as Tina straightened up from where she had been crouched in front of the other girl, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. "She's fucking digging for my brain or something!"

"As if you actually have a brain underneath all that fucking hair," the blonde on the table snapped back, rolling her big green eyes. Archie lost interest as the two girls began sniping at each other, although two of the brothers who were sitting on the couch leaned forward, eyes gleaming with intent. Veronica started shouting at the girls, but Archie let it all fade out as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, stopping it's vibrating by swiping his finger across the screen.

"Juggie," he greeted his friend, and the vice-president of the Serpents.

"Archie," Jughead Jones responded, letting out a heavy breath that made Archie frown, concerned. Not much got to Jughead, not much at all. He didn't show emotion, on his face or in his voice, and he managed to stay detached from most things. But Archie could tell that there was something wrong in just one word.

"What do you need?" Archie asked, already walking out of the big warehouse where the porn studio was situated. "Where are you?"

"I'm at the drive in," Jughead replied shortly.

"Okay, I'll be there in ten minutes," Archie told him as he pushed open the door, walking out into the sunlight. "What is it?"

"It's Betty," Jughead answered. "She's back." Archie's eyebrows lifted, arching high near his hairline as he stopped beside his motorbike.

"Betty? Betty Cooper?" Archie double-checked, although who was he kidding, there was only one Betty in the whole wide world that Jughead actually cared about. And apparently the blonde was back in Riverdale, after being MIA since they finished high school. Obviously Jughead thought it was a stupid question as well, because he didn't even bother replying before ending the call. "Right," Archie pursed his lips together as he pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at blank screen for a moment, before tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans.

The Twilight Drive In used to be a spot where families would gather on Friday nights for a PG-rated, usually cartoon movie. And then on Saturdays, it would be something a little riskier, and it would be teenagers in their cars, making out in the front seat or drinking in the back of pick up trucks. It closed just after their senior year, but Jughead had always loved the place and still used it as an escape sometimes. It didn't take long for Archie to get there, taking the back roads rather than the main street of the town, and he drove across the grass in the paddock, which was growing long given how long it had been since it had been trimmed, almost knee height. He could see Jughead's bike on the other side, an expensive 2003 Harley-Davidson Dyna Super Glide Sport, that had been his first bike when he was fifteen, and that he had lovingly looked after since then.

"Juggie," Archie greeted him as he turned off his bike, resting one foot on the ground as it tipped to the side. Jughead's bike had it's stand kicked out, securely standing, and Jughead was sitting on one of the old rusted metal benches from when the drive in had still be running and operating, and had a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. His eyebrows were set, drawn together and pointed down, and from the butts that were already gathered on the ground beside the dark haired mans feet, he had almost smoked his way through a whole pack already. "So..." Archie began as he braced his leg against the bench and tipped his head to the side, looking down at his oldest friend. "Betty's back."

"Betty's back," Jughead confirmed, his voice flat.

Betty.

Elizabeth Cooper.

In high school, she had been the beautiful, blonde daughter of Hal and Alice Cooper, younger sister of Polly and Chic Cooper. She had always had good grades, she had been on the cheerleading squad, and she had been crowned prom queen as a junior, which was practically unheard of. There had even been talk at the beginning of senior year as well, although that had been right at the start, before her and Jughead had gotten involved and it had all come to life, and then the couple hadn't even ended up making it to their senior prom. Not as though Jughead would ever be seen at the prom, but Betty had been planning on going until her father had passed away and things had gotten a bit messy in her life.

They had actually all been really close at one point—Veronica, Archie, Jughead and Betty. Betty's parents, especially her mother, were overprotective to the point of micro-managing her life, and they had absolutely _never_ approved of Betty's friendships with Archie and Jughead, given their families ties to the South Side Serpents. There had also been some history between Betty's parents and Veronica's parents, mainly her mother, that was a point on contention as well.

But despite how sweet and kind Betty was, and how much she had always wanted people to be happy, when she made a decision about something, she dug in her heels and couldn't be moved.

So her friendship with Veronica, Archie and Jughead had persisted.

"Have you spoken to her yet?" Archie asked carefully, reaching down to pick up the pack of cigarettes on the bench next to his friend, pulling one out and propping it between his lips. There was always a cigarette lighter in one of the pockets of his leather Serpent jacket—and his leather Serpent vest that he wore if he _wasn't_ wearing the jacket—and he pulled it up to light the end.

"I'm pretty sure if I went anywhere near her and there was an escape route, she'd be hightailing it out of there," Jughead muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, I mean the last time you tried to talk to her, you kind of chased her out of town," Archie snorted, and Jughead turned his glare toward the red head, and the smirk quickly dropped off his face. "Sorry," he muttered, looking away from Jughead and staring at where their bikes were parked in the long grass. Quiet fell between the pair of them for a long moment, letting out long streams of smoke into the evening that was falling around them, the sun dipping into the horizon and the blue sky turning shades of orange and red.

"Apparently she's got a job at the bar," Jughead spoke up after a few moments. "The bar that Nance runs."

"Chuck's ex?" Archie raised an eyebrow. It was one of the more popular bars in town, although the Serpents usually spent the nights that they were drinking at their own club house, where they didn't have security guards to cut them off when they were too drunk. The other place where they would go was the Whyte Wyrm, but that was on the south side, and a bit of a dive bar, so it didn't attract too much attention from the rest of the town, usually only getting new blood when the rich kids of the town wanted to score.

"Yup," Jughead finished the cigarette, dropping it to the ground and stretching out one leg to grind it down into the dirt. Archie pulled his own cigarette out of his mouth, holding it between two fingers.

"How long has she been back? And also, how do you know where she has a job, if you haven't talked to her yet?" Archie questioned, although they were pretty pointless. The Serpents had connections all over town, and despite Jugheads reputation of not really wanting to be one who liked to talk, he didn't have any difficulty getting information when he wanted or needed it.

"She came back into town the night before last," Jughead replied sullenly. "And she organized the job before she came down, apparently."

"Make sense," Archie murmured. "She was always organized," he thought for a moment and frowned. "I thought that she was a fully qualified mechanic? Why is she going to work at a bar?"

"Think about it," Jughead rolled his eyes. "There are three garages in town. One is owned by old man Danvers, who is so stuck in his backwards ways that he still doesn't even have a credit card machine, he _definitely_ would never hire a female mechanic. And the other two—"

"Are owned and run by the Serpents," Archie finished with realization in his voice. Jughead nodded and breathed in deeply through his nose, standing up from where he had been sitting, his heavy, black motorcycle boots trampling down the grass around him. "You're not planning on trapping her at her job, are you?" Archie frowned. "Making her talk to you by going to the bar?" Jughead didn't answer, but that told the red head all he needed to know. "That's not exactly the best way to go about talking her after, what, seven years?"

"Almost seven," Jughead muttered. "Six years and eight months."

"But who's counting?" Archie joked lightly. Jughead didn't even bother to glance at him as he stepped up to his bike, swinging one leg over the seat and settling down on it. Clearly the conversation was over, but that was normal. Jughead never said more than he needed to, the fact that he had wanted to talk at all about something that was bothering him was practically unheard of, so Archie was just glad that he wasn't keeping everything bottled up. "Look, maybe give her a few weeks to settle in. Being back in Riverdale for her is a big thing, and she's been away for so long, she needs some time to adjust. I could always ask Veronica to talk to her, if there's something specific that you wanted to know?" Jughead frowned at Archie.

"Right," he scoffed. "There's nothing that I want _Veronica_ to ask her," he kicked up the stand of his bike and turned on the engine with a roar. "I just want to talk to her, and I'm pretty sure she's gonna do everything she can to avoid me." 


	3. Chapter 3

"I can't say I agree with this," Cheryl raised an eyebrow as she looked Betty up and down. "I really don't know if I can remain best friends with someone who is...Who is prostituting herself out just to the pay the rent," she shook her head, all over dramatic with her bright red lips and her fluttering eyelashes. Betty snorted, ignoring her friend as she leaned closer to the mirror so that she could finish her eyeliner.

"I'm working as a bartender, not a two dollar hooker," she responded as she leaned back, satisfied with her winged eyeliner. "And I worked as a bartender before, you didn't seem to have a problem with it then."

"That was because you were nineteen, it's a different then," Cheryl curled her shiny lips up in disdain. "It's a little more tragic when you're twenty-four."

"Good to know that I can always count on you to make me feel better, Cher," Betty said sarcastically as she stripped off the baby blue tee-shirt she was wearing, walking over to her wardrobe and flipping through the dresses that she had hanging there. Given Cheryl had absolutely no sense of personal boundaries and rarely ever announced when she was going to barge into Betty's room, her need for privacy when changing had disappeared very shortly after the pair of them had moved in together.

"If you're not whoring yourself out for menial tips, then why is it you're looking for the sluttiest dress you own?" Cheryl pointed out when Betty pulled out a slinky black dress that she only wore out when they went clubbing and she had the sole purpose of getting laid in mind.

"Not all of us have mummies and daddies who are happy to have us lift off trust funds," Betty responded as she took off her bra and pulled on the dress. She moved back to stand in front of the mirror, scrutinizing her appearance and then decided maybe she was dressing a little bit too over the top now. When she had spoken with Nancy Woods—a girl that she had met when she lived here years ago, they had been in high school together—Nancy had said that just like any other bar or club, the sexier she looked, the better she would get tipped.

But then again, this was Riverdale. Unlike New York, the standard of _sexy_ that this town was used to wasn't quite as high, so she didn't have to try quite as hard as she did when she was nineteen and competing with hundreds of other pretty bartenders.

So she stripped out of the dress, crumbling it on the floor of her childhood bedroom and opening up the drawers and finding a pair of denim shorts that she had brought a few years ago. She had been skinny in high school, not really filling out much at all, mainly because she was so scared of comments from her mother whenever she went for seconds at dinner. After she left Riverdale and became more comfortable with herself and her body, she let herself fill out a bit more, and she and Cheryl had taken self defense and boxing classes in Los Angeles, which had given her some muscle tone and she quite liked the curves her body now had. The denim shorts clung to her ass and showed off her long legs, and then accepted a dark green singlet that Cheryl threw at her, with a deep v-neck.

"Hey, Bets?" Cheryl voice was a little bit quieter this time, and the blonde turned around to face her friend. "I saw Archie the other day." Betty waited in silence, knowing that there was no point in trying to prompt Cheryl to speak faster, because the girl only worked at her own speed. "He asked if we wanted to come over for dinner and his and Ronnie's place."

"What did you tell him?" Betty asked quietly.

"Well, when he said that he'd invite some of the guys, and it'd be like old times, I kinda guessed that meant Jughead," Cheryl's eyes were scrutinizing her, even if she wasn't being obvious about it. "So I said that maybe we'd set something up later." Betty pursed her lips together before jerking her head in a nod.

"Thanks," she muttered. Cheryl watched her as she reached over to grab her handbag from where it was sitting on her bed, and then tipping her head to the side to follow her friend as she walked across the room to where her shoes were. "These are going to be a killer," Betty sighed as she pulled on the heels that Cheryl had given her. They were only a couple of inches tall, and made her legs and ass look amazing, and would undoubtedly bring in some extra tips, but her feet were going to ache at the end of the evening.

"Hey, Bets?" Cheryl called out as Betty reached the door.

"Mm?" Betty glanced back at her friend.

"You know me and Jughead never really got along, and he's still not the sort of person that I'm going to invite to Sunday brunch," Cheryl began, her bright red upper lip curling slightly, but then softening her expression before continuing. "But you're going to have to talk to him, at least to smooth the air. I mean...As much as I hate to admit it, we kind of live in their town, right?" Betty arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow at her friend and snorted.

"I never thought that you would admit this town belonged to any one other than the Blossoms," she teased lightly. Cheryl just gave her a flat look, showing her that she couldn't joke her way out of this. "Look, I will talk to him. I'll get there," she shrugged. "Just...Haven't had the chance yet." She hadn't told Cheryl that she had pretty much sprinted in the opposite direction when she just saw Jughead on the street, through the window of a store, and she would probably do the exact same thing the _next_ time she saw him. "Anyway, you going to be here when I get back tonight? Or you going out?"

"Eh," Cheryl shrugged, walking over to Betty's bed and flopping down on it, looking extremely at home in the room where Betty had grown up. "We'll see if I get a better offer or not." Betty just rolled her eyes, leaving the room and heading down the hallway.

After her mother had died and the house had been left to the two sisters, Betty had been more than happy for Polly to take over looking after the house and living in it. With the money she had been left to her, from both parents since all the money her father had left had gone to their mother until she passed, she had enough to be comfortable. Other than buying her car, she invested a little and saved the rest. She didn't live outside of her means, and she managed to put away some more from what she got in salary from the garage. After Polly did up the house, the sisters were going to sell it, since it had been left to both of them, they would split the profits.

But what she had liked—loved, really—was what Polly had done to Betty's bedroom. She had repainted it from the light pink colour that it had been when she was growing up, to a neutral, faded coffee colour. A lot of the things in the room were exactly the same, including the stuffed bear on her bed that she used to refuse to go to sleep without, but she had replaced the frilly curtains and replaced the light pink drawers with a plain wooden set.

Sort of what Betty had always wanted as she was growing up, but her parents had refused to let her have. So when she returned to Riverdale, at least she was comfortable with the room she was in.

Probably the only thing she _was_ comfortable with.

Despite the fact that Cheryl had managed to put off Archie and Veronica and their dinner date for now, it wasn't going to be long before they tried again. And it wasn't fair that Betty put them off because she was scared that she would run into Jughead.

Coming face to face with Jughead was inevitable.

Riverdale wasn't small, it had definitely grown since she was gone, but it was in no way big enough that they wouldn't end up confronting each other at some point, especially since her friends back in this town were friends with them. And, if she was being completely honest, things would work easier for her if she just talked to Jughead and smoothed things over with him. The hardest part was going to be the first time they spoke, and then maybe once they had gotten that over with, they could both go about their separate lives.

Maybe that's what scared her.

Being in Riverdale and _not_ being with Jughead.

Everything about this town reminded her of him, which was why she avoided this place like the plague.

To be fair, though, she carried a permanent reminder of him with her everywhere she went, tattooed on her hip.

* * *

The night went better a lot better than Betty thought it would. It had been years since she had waitressed, and this was her first night in the bar, Nancy said that she was going to have it easy to get back into the rhythm of things. But it was easy to remember what needed to be done, and it really wasn't that hard, nowhere near as complex as what she was dealing with when in the garage, and so by halfway through the evening, she was looking after her own tables.

She had gone to high school with Nancy and they had even been on the cheerleading squad for two years, the cheerleading squad that Cheryl had been captain of, before Betty had dropped out in her senior year, and she had also dated Chuck Clayton for several years. Betty wasn't sure when they had broken up, but a few years ago a picture had come up on her newsfeed of Nancy kissing another guy, so she had guessed they were broken up.

Betty recognized some of the people who came in, there were even some people who came in that had been in her year at school, but thankfully no one that she had been close with, so it was all small talk and they didn't ask any prodding questions.

As the night went on, people got drunker and a few tried to grope her, but she had lived for six years in Los Angeles and was very good at dodging around wandering hands. The bar closed just after two in the morning, and Nancy told her to leave and let her and the other two waitresses deal with the clean up. Betty's car was parked around the back, where it was dark and there was barely any light. But this was Riverdale; it was a small, safe town, nothing like Los Angeles, where you had to make sure you always walked in twos after dark and should never, ever go down dark alleys.

So Betty pulled on her cropped jacket as she walked out of the bar, heading down the skinny driveway behind the bar to where her car was parked. She was pulling out her keys and getting ready to unlock the Camaro when a figure stepped out from the shadows of the building.

"Holy fuck!" Betty gasped out, jolting a step backward and putting a hand to her chest as the person lifted their head, and in the slim line of moonlight that was filtering down through the gap in the buildings, she saw it was Jughead. "Shit," she breathed out, relieved that it wasn't someone who was about to jump her, but then wondering if perhaps the alternative would have been better.

"Betty," Jughead's voice was low...Raspy...And it sent a shiver down Betty's spine. "I think we need to talk." Betty swallowed hard, holding her keys hard in the palm of her hand, so that the dips in the metal were biting into the soft skin there. "Go for a ride?" Betty's eyes slid to the side and she realized that his bike was parked there, close to the wall.

She should say no.

She should say no, and go home, where Cheryl was probably waiting for her on the couch with some expensive wine that she couldn't pronounce the name of.

She should say no, because she needed to think this through properly, because had always been, and always would be a mess when it came to Jughead Jones.

"Okay," Betty agreed in a quiet voice, stepping forward as he offered her a spare helmet, that he must have brought along with the intention of giving to her. Jughead pursed his lips together as he put on the other helmet, and the engine of his bike roared in the narrow alley.


	4. Chapter 4

Betty hadn't been on a motorbike since she was eighteen years old, but she had never forgotten the way it felt to be on the back of one.

The wind whipped at her legs and her face, and the street lights flashed above them as Jughead accelerated. Her bare legs were stinging a little from the wind, but it was easy to ignore, tucking them in behind Jughead's legs so that her knees were pressed behind his, protecting hers.

She was trying not to pay any attention to the fact it was Jughead in front of her, but it was kind of impossible to ignore the warm, muscled body in front of her, and she could feel the stitching of the Serpents logo on the back pressing against her chest, through the thin material of her shirt and into her skin. Betty honestly had no idea where they were heading, but despite the years that had passed since they had seen each other, she still trusted Jughead implicitly.

Maybe that wasn't the smartest thing, and yeah, okay, trusting the big, bad guy who drove a motorbike that probably cost more than she made in six months and had tattoo's all up and down his arms, and was part of the local motorbike gang who dealt in both guns and dugs didn't seem like something an intelligent girl like herself should do...But Jughead would never, ever hurt her.

She knew that better than she knew herself.

They drove for a while, before Jughead started slowing the bike down—although her heart was still pounding double time in her chest—and Betty lifted her head from where she had been protecting it behind Jughead's body to look over his shoulder.

Of course.

They were at the Twilight Drive In.

This had been Jughead's special place since they were kids, and they had made a hundred memories here. Jughead drove across the grass, which was long and overgrown, and that kind of made Betty sad, because she remembered back when they were in high school and this place was well looked after. He drove to the other side of the drive in before stopping his bike, resting one foot flat on the ground as he waited for Betty to get off the bike, taking off the helmet and holding it loosely under one arm. Jughead looked at for a couple of beats, and it made her shift uncomfortably from one foot to another, very aware of the clothing she was wearing.

Or lack thereof.

"What did you want, Jughead?" Betty asked, her voice quiet, because it felt like the stillness of the night required it. She was just glad that it was a warm night, so that she wasn't standing in front of him shivering.

"You're back," Jughead stated, swinging his leg over the bike, slowly taking off his helmet. He refused to move from where he was standing beside his bike, his face hidden by the shadows of the tree they had parked under. It was a power move, and Betty knew him well enough to know that that meant he was feeling uncertain, maybe a little vulnerable.

At least she wasn't the only one, she pondered as she drew in a deep breath.

"I am," she jerked her head in a nod.

"For how long?" Jughead asked, his words brisk.

"I'm not sure," Betty gave a one shouldered shrug, and given she couldn't see his face, she wasn't sure how he felt about the news.

"Why?" Betty licked her lips at the question, tilting her head to the side. Her hair fell over one shoulder, a couple of flyaway strands falling over her cheeks, and she wondered if she was ever going to actually _see_ Jughead's face throughout this conversation. She kept her lips pursed together, staring at the outline of his head for a long, few beats before Jughead let out an annoyed sigh and stepped forward. She could see his face in the pale blue of the moonlight, and although his expression was carefully blank, she knew him well enough to pick up on certain flickers that gave away whole stories.

"Polly," she answered honestly. "She's close to having the babies, and she's selling the house. Chic is off doing god knows what, and with both of our parents gone, I wanted to make sure she had some family around. You know the Blossoms aren't exactly the nurturing kind." Jughead snorted and shook his head.

"You're telling me. I remember when they told Cheryl not to come home after she failed that Spanish test," he muttered.

"That was a fun three days, having Cheryl sharing my bedroom while good ol' Cliff and Penelope calmed the fuck down," Betty remembered. They had been seventeen, and while they were good friends at that time, Cheryl was definitely used to a life style that Alice and Hal's pay cheques didn't quite provide. The red head was a lot more used to Betty's more simple and cost efficient way of living now, but she hadn't been as a teenager.

"Your hands were a mess at the end of it," Jughead noted, and the small smile that had crept over Betty's lips at the short trip down memory lane quickly fell away, thinking about the anxiety outlet that she had as a teenager, digging her fingernails into her palms. She swallowed hard and didn't respond, and Jughead shifted conversation tactics. "You and baby Blossom still seem to be tight."

"She's my best friend," Betty gave a short nod of her head.

"How does Keller feel about the demotion?" Jughead arched an eyebrow at her.

"You can have more than one best friend," the blonde shot back at him.

"I don't know about that," Jughead muttered, glancing to the side. "I find it difficult just to _like_ two people at the same time." Betty couldn't help the small laugh at that comment and Jughead's eyes widened, surprised. The laugh seemed to loosen something between them, and Jughead's shoulders slumped slightly and he licked his lips, reaching up to tug at the beanie that he had on. "We never got to talk about what happened," he murmured, and Betty's face closed down once more.

"I disagree," she straightened up, jutting her chin forward. "I think we talked a whole lot."

"Not after," Jughead pointed out.

"There was nothing to talk about after," Betty's voice had an edge to it, and her eyes slid to the side, not wanting to look at Jughead. But he stepped forward, and she felt a tug at the helmet she had tucked under one arm. She let it go, lifting her arm to release it, and Jughead tossed it back toward his bike, not paying any attention as it fell on the grass.

"You left," Jughead's words were pained, and it tugged at something inside Betty. It was that same part of her that always ached when Jughead was mentioned, or she saw a photo of him, or she thought back to when she was a teenager. She locked her jaw, feeling pressure behind her eyes, and she knew that if she looked at Jughead, the tears were going to spill over. "You left _me_." He reached out and his thumb and forefinger gripped her chin, tightly but not enough to hurt her, just enough for him to turn her face back so that she was looking directly at him.

"Jughead..." Betty swallowed hard, trying to twist her head and pull away from him, but he held on firmly, his eyes narrow as he looked at her.

"That was never part of the plan, Betty," he continued, and she felt the tears prick at the corners of her eyes. "I tried to call you—I tried to call you for six months, even though it kept going straight to your voice mail. Veronica finally told me that you had changed your number, and she wouldn't give me your new one." Betty knew this. Well, she didn't know that he had tried calling her old number, because she had thrown that out the window of her car about two hours outside of Riverdale. But she knew that he had asked for her new number, because Veronica had called her, and tried to talk her around to letting her give the number to Jughead.

Betty had practically slept for two days straight after that call from Veronica, curled up in a ball in her bed.

"Look, it happened when we were teenagers, and I know that it was a long time ago. We were both scared and confused—we were kids. But I need you to know that I _always_ stood by you," Jughead leaned forward, and Betty could see the glint in his eyes spoke to how serious he was. She couldn't help it, her eyes fell down to his eyes, remembering how soft they used to feel against her own. His face was so close that she could see the flecks in his blue eyes, and she could feel his breath on her cheeks, on her mouth.

"It doesn't matter now," Betty managed to say, although each word felt as though it was getting stuck in her throat.

"Why not?" Jughead asked, and the breath that puffed out over her lips made her shiver.

"Because it was a long time ago," Betty replied as she looked made another attempt to step away from Jughead, this time managing to break free of the hold he had on her chin and stepping back shakily. Her heel got caught in a dip in the ground, though, and she almost fell over, but Jughead's hand snapped out and wrapped around her wrist, his thumb pressing against her pulse point. Betty bit down on her lower lip and Jughead closed the distance between them once again, massaging his thumb gently over the inside of her wrist.

"It wasn't over then, Betty," Jughead said, watching as Betty's pupils dilated and her breathing came out faster and faster. "And it's not over now. Not for me," he watched as her eyes flickered between his eyes and his lips and that gave him the last ounce of courage that he needed to wrap his other arm around Betty's waist, pulling her in close to him so that their bodies were lined up. "And not for you." Betty's gorgeous, red lips parted, as though she was going to say something, but Jughead didn't give her a chance, bringing his lips down on hers, hard enough to make their teeth click together.

For one second, Betty resisted.

But then Jughead felt her melt against him, and she returned the pressure.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> Sorry about the delay, just with work and life, I'll be updating monthly for the foreseeable future :)

Jughead was still trying to convince himself that this wasn't a dream.

Because he had never actually thought that he would have another chance to have Betty's body against his, to feel her skin underneath his fingers.

He had dreamed about this for years, getting another opportunity to taste her, but the way he knew that this _wasn't_ a dream, was because the Betty that he had _now_ , the Betty who was whimpering under his touch was a twenty-four year old Betty, and the Betty in his dreams, was always the girl that he was with in high school. His memories were all of them six years ago, frozen bodies in the past. He would remember her slim body, able to trace her ribs with his fingers, the hair that was always in a ponytail, that perfume she wore that smelt sweet and soft, like a summers afternoon. Even after they had been together for some time, she was still a little nervous, trying to smother her noises even as she arched her back, wanting more but hesitant about asking for it.

But now, things were different.

The body that was against his now was no longer a teenagers one, it was a womans. Instead of being so skinny that her breasts only half filled his hands, they were fuller, heavier, and although she was still slim, she wasn't skinny, there was a bit more of a curve to her hips, stomach and ass. She had changed her perfume, it was now something a bit sharper, something citrusy, like orange or lemon, and her hair was loose, falling down her back.

She was also loud, letting appreciation fall from her lips.

Jughead loved it.

"Shit," Betty sighed, letting her head tip backwards as Jughead began kissing her jaw, travelling down her neck. Both of his hands moved around to rest against her ass, squeezing it hard through the tiny, denim shorts that she was wearing. They were the same height at the moment, with her in those high heels, and Jughead needed to bend at the waist as his wet kisses traveled over her collarbone and dipped toward the valley of her breasts. "Shit, Juggie..."

Three people in the whole world called him 'Juggie'.

His father, Archie...And Betty.

And it sounded so, _so_ sweet coming from Betty's lips.

Jughead pulled back his head for a split second, just to double check that it really was Betty in his arms, and he pressed his hips against hers, backing her up until her back hit a tree, and he shifted one of his hands to the tree beside her, pinning her in. Betty didn't seem to mind, because she initiated their next kiss, hands on either side of his face as she brought their lips together.

In the time that they had been together in high school—they had been officially a couple for almost a year, but they had been fooling around for a few months longer than that, and friends for even longer—she had begun to come out of her tentative shell. It had taken a long time before she had actually reached out for him and started things between them when it came to sex. She had been a virgin, and Jughead had been patient with her, never wanting to push her or make her feel uncomfortable.

And when she had let him in...It had been incredible.

"Betty..." Jughead breathed against her skin as he bit down on the shell of her ear and felt her shiver. His fingers went to the zipper of those tiny shorts that she was wearing, pausing over the button to wait for her to tell him to stop if that's what she wanted. But she just drew in a ragged breath through her teeth and put both hands in his hair, tugging at the dark strands. Jughead undone the button and jerked down the zipper, and was then pushing the shorts down her long legs. She still had her high heels on, but there absolutely _no_ way was Jughead taking those off.

But he _was_ taking off her underwear.

It was a thong, a black and green scrap of material that barely hid anything, and his breath caught in his throat as his fingers played along the material at her hip. There was a fleeting thought in his mind about who else had seen her in these underwear, who else had got to see his beautiful Betty at her most vulnerable, who else had been lucky enough to see her like this; panting and bare—but he pushed those thoughts down.

She wasn't _his_ Betty anymore.

And those were _not_ thoughts that he should be letting cloud his mind and taint this experience.

Jughead pulled down her underwear, and Betty lifted her heeled feet one at a time so that he could pull them off completely, and then he fell to his knees in front of her. His heart skipped a beat as he leaned in close to her, his hands sliding up her smooth legs and hooking behind her knees, and he glanced up at her through his thick eyelashes one last time before his mouth was on her.

"Juggie," Betty's voice was soft and sweet and almost so quiet that it got swept up in the light, night time breeze and whirled away like the leaves that were falling off the tree above her. Jughead kissed the inside of her thighs, not wanting to rush this moment, but then scared that if he moved too slowly then he was going to loose this moment. So he lifted himself up further, and his tongue flicked out as he moved higher up her thighs. Betty's breathing became more labored, and she shifted her legs, spreading them ever so slightly to grant him better access. She groomed herself now, between her legs, and there was a perfect little diamond of hair, the apex pointing toward her slit—yet another difference between his dreams and the reality in front of him.

Jughead pressed a soft kiss, right over her clit, and Betty's hand tightened where it was in his hair, which spurred him on. The grip he had behind her knees shifted, moving up to her ass where he squeezed and kneaded the flesh there before his tongue flicked out over her slit.

"Shit!" Betty whimpered. Jughead's tongue dipped inside her lower lips, teasing lightly over her clit before moving lower to her hole. The tip of his tongue flicked back up to her clit a couple of times, and quickly had her mumbling and moaning, slowly starting to thrust her hips forward to meet Jughead's mouth, asking for more from him. Jughead went with it, eating her and making her shiver and moan and writhe underneath him, against the tree. Her fingers just got even tighter in his hair and she pulled his face harder toward her. Jugheads teeth pressed against her clit as his tongue curled inside her.

She spilled over his tongue, tasting just as sweet and drugging as she did the first time he tasted her.

Jughead wanted to keep going, he wanted to keep eating her until she was shaking and her thighs were trembling and she couldn't stand anymore, but now wasn't the time. He would do that later, when he had her in a bed, and they weren't in a public place. Jughead didn't bother wiping his mouth as he raised himself back to his feet and reached for Betty's neck. She was still shaking a little, with her eyes half lidded, and she let her head be pulled forward, toward Jughad's kiss. Her taste passed between their tongues, and after she seemed to recover from her orgasm, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him against her.

"Babe..." Jughead murmured against her mouth, one had still resting on her neck, his thumb tucked behind her ear, and other hand gripping her hip. "I need to be in you." Betty didn't verbally reply, but she nodded her head a couple of times, still kissing him. "Hold on," he pulled away from her, hoping that she wouldn't change her mind if he took his hands off her for more than a few seconds. He was so hard in his jeans that it actually hurt a little, his cock straining against the confines of it's denim prison. He reached his bag, quickly opening the saddlebag and reaching in for a condom that was tucked underneath a knife and his gun. Then he quickly turned back and stalked back over to Betty.

"Hurry up," she muttered, reaching out and grabbing his shirt with her fist, twisting it slightly, her other hand sliding underneath the shirt and gliding over the muscular planes on his stomach. Jughead bit down on his lip to stop himself from moaning out loud and he undone his belt, and then his button and zipper. Betty dropped her hand from his stomach to his pants, rubbing the erection, and this time Jughead couldn't keep back his groan. There was a lift of a smile in her lips, although he only caught a glimpse of it since her head was now ducked, and she pumped his cock a couple of times, her thumb pressing against the slit at the top, smearing the pre-cum that was already leaking. Jughead leaned forward, biting at her shoulder lightly, drawing out another whimper from her throat. "Come on," Betty mumbled, giving his cock a squeeze and making Jughead grunt again.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, lifting the condom to his mouth and tearing the corner off with his teeth. He didn't bother putting his rubbish in his pocket, letting it fall to the ground, and Betty dropped her hand away from his cock to take the condom from him. She didn't fumble, or pause, as she slid the condom over his hard member and then lifted her eyes back to him. Her eyes were so green, so big, so expressive, and Jughead slid his hands in her hair, pulling her face back to his, their teeth clicking together as he kissed her roughly, just needing to feel her lips against his again. Betty let out a whine as his hand groped her breast through her thing shirt, pinching at her nipple, and she gripped him again, directing him between her legs. They were the same height, with her in her heels, and so it wasn't hard for Betty to put his cock between her legs, and slide into her tight heat. " _Fuck_ ," Jughead groaned, pulling away from her lips, but his forehead still leaning against hers.

"Juggie," Betty sighed, letting her head fall back against the tree as she adjusted to him inside of her. Jughead's jeans were only pushed down far enough for him to be out, still covering his ass, and he felt as though his whole body was on fire. His toes curled in his heavy boots and his skin felt too tight—too small for his body. Betty lifted her head off the tree and gave him a slight nod of her head, and Jughead gripped her amazing, perky ass with one hand, the other bracing against the tree beside her head.

He thrust into her over, and over again, making Betty groan, and writhe against him. Jughead was grunting, repeating Betty's name under his breath repeatedly, his face collapsing against her shoulder, breathing hotly against her skin. The blonde was holding him, her nails digging into the leather of his jacket. The breeze was cold against their burning skin, and with the way that Betty was breathing against his ear—ragged and desperate—and the intoxicating smell and feel of her body against his...It didn't take Jughead long before he was groaning and emptying his orgasm into the condom.


	6. Chapter 6

Betty winced at the creak of the front door as she stepped into her childhood home. She felt like she was seventeen again, sneaking back into her house after disappearing into the night on the back of Jughead's motorbike, and then coming home an hour before the morning sun rose. She really shouldn't feel that way now, given she was an adult, and she had every right to be out doing whatever she wanted and not answering to anyone. Polly wasn't here, she had moved in with Jason a long time ago, and there was a chance that not even Cheryl was here—maybe visiting her brother and Betty's sister, or out with one of her high school friends—but there was something about being back in Riverdale and the house that she had grown up in that had her reverting to her teenage ways.

She locked the door behind her and was about to start up the steps to her room when a light to her right switched on and Betty jumped, letting out a gasp of surprise.

"I can smell that sweaty, Serpent sex from all the way over here," Cheryl stated with a curl of her upper lip, crossing her arms over her chest from the sofa where she was sitting. Betty made a face, considering ignoring the red head and just going directly up to her room. But Cheryl would follow her, and then they would just be having this conversation in a different location.

"Cheryl," Betty began with a sigh, stepping toward the lounge, and Cheryl silenced her with a simple raise of her eyebrow. Betty made a face as she came fully into the lounge and slumped down on the couch opposite her best friend. "It's not what you think."

"Oh, okay," Cheryl shrugged and made a face. "So that's not a hickey on your neck? My bad. Clearly it's been far too long since I got laid." Betty rolled he eyes at the sarcasm dripping from Cheryl's tongue, because that girl got laid at least once a week. Then she realized that her little lovers tryst with Jughead had actually left a mark, and she was going to have to find a way to cover that up because she was not about to have this conversation with anyone else. "So, we're back, what—a couple of days? And you're already spreading your legs for Jughead?"

"It was a one off thing!" Betty protested.

"Now both of us know that that's bullshit," Cheryl snorted. Betty pursed her lips together and clenched her jaw. Cheryl sighed, and scooted forward on the couch, resting against the edge and spreading her hands out on the low table between them. "Betty," she said quietly. "If you still have feelings for Jughead, the there's nothing wrong with acting on them. I mean...You guys have history."

"There's a _but_ coming..."

" _But_ our lives are back in Los Angeles," Cheryl continued, her voice soft. "And we were only planning on coming back here for a couple of months. If you get caught up in something with Jughead again...Do you really want to get stuck here? Is this really where you think that you can be happy?" Betty sighed and rested back against the couch, tugging at the strands of her hair that were falling over her shoulder. "Because it was hard enough for you to leave the first time, I don't know if you're going to be able to do that a second time..."

* * *

"I was thinking Allie, if it's a girl," Polly Cooper said with an idle smile, tipping her head to one side. "You know, something with a nod toward mum? And Jason really likes the name Jeremy for a boy."

"They're nice," Betty smiled back at her sister. "And you still want it to be a surprise? You don't want to find out the sex beforehand?"

"Nope," Polly shook her head. "I've got another scan in a few weeks time, but we're pretty happy with letting it be a surprise."

"Are Mama and Papa Blossom happy with a surprise?" Betty snorted. "Those two like to have things planned out to the very last detail." Polly just shrugged a shoulder, an unconcerned expression on her face. The Blossom parents were kind of scary—there had been so many rumors about them and their mansion at Thornhill—and it had been strange when Betty had actually become friends with Cheryl, even stranger when Polly and Jason had become a couple. They weren't married yet, not even engaged, but they were about to have children together, and that was something that was going to bind them together forever.

"It's not their choice," Polly answered, before lifting her head with a smile as she looked through the window and saw someone coming up the driveway. "Oh, it's Veronica."

"Veronica?" Betty asked in confusion, and a moment later, there was a knock at the front door.

"Come in!" Polly called from where they were sitting in the large kitchen. The front door opened, and a moment later, the dark haired girl came into the room. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a dark purple singlet that showed off the tattoo on her outer bicep—the Serpents trademark logo. Her smile widened when she saw Betty at the table, and it was infectious, Betty getting up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table to greet her old friend.

"Bets!" Veronica cried out, throwing her arms around the taller girl and gave her a tight hug. "Holy shit! I saw Cheryl the other day, and she said that you were back!" She pulled back and put her hands on Betty's shoulders, giving her a quick once over. "You're looking good."

"Thanks, V," Betty smiled and stepped away from Veronica. "So...You guys are friends now?" She looked between her sister and the dark haired girl.

"Well, after you left, I had to get my Cooper fix from somewhere," Veronica replied with a shrug as she walked over to the table and put down the large bag she was carrying. "Right, so I brought some clothes for our baby," she said with a grin and Polly looked over Veronica's head with a smile, shaking her head, and Betty couldn't help but be so grateful that even though she hadn't been around for the past couple of years, at least Polly had someone else that she could rely on other than Jason.

"You know you can stop buying things for the baby," Polly pointed out to Veronica. "This child is already so spoilt and they're not even _born_ yet."

"I _love_ shopping, you should already know this about me by now," Veronica stated as rummaged around in the bag that she had put on the table, pulling out a pair of adorable black and green spotted gumboots. "And once that baby is born, I'm going to buy even more. I've been having my mum ship a bunch of clothes out from this adorable little baby boutique I found online in Paris."

"And how _is_ the great Hermione Lodge?" Betty asked as she settled back in her seat.

"She's enjoying daddy's new hotel in Paris," Veronica replied as she sat down at another seat at the table. "She's wanted to live in France for as long as I can remember, so she's living it up on wine and croissants."

" _And_ she's also come around on her daughter being a bit of a..." Polly searched for the right term to use and let out a short laugh. "Entrepreneur?"

"What can I say? I see a need, I fill I need," Veronica shrugged with a smirk.

"Yes, and there is always a need for more porn in the world," Betty joked.

"Clearly there is!" Veronica joked right back. "Business is going well at the moment—we're even looking at moving from the building I'm in at the moment, moving somewhere else so that we can expand to a couple of different sets. I'm able to hire girls who are more in demand, who have their own following—those boys and girls behind the computer screens definitely have their favourites."

"If you had told me seven years ago that I would be sitting at the table of one of the Blossoms with my sister and you, talking about how good the porn industry is at the moment, I would never have believed it," Betty laughed, earning a grin from both Veronica and Polly. "I remember when you were a prissy little Princess at your fancy boarding school, who thought that it was 'slumming it' by just coming to _Pops_ with us. And now here you are, running a porn studio that was founded by a local motorcycle gang."

"Archie still treats me like a princess," Veronica answered with an easy smile. "And that's good enough for me."

"How _are_ you and Archie?" Betty asked, her eyes dropping down quickly to the engagement ring on Veronica's hand. She kept up with Veronica semi-frequently, messaging each other on Facebook every couple of weeks and calling each other at least once a month. They had gotten engaged about a year ago, although neither of them were in a rush to get married.

"We're good," Veronica smiled before biting her lower lip and looking at her hands, almost nervously. "Actually, the reason I came over here was because I have some news."

"Is everything okay?" Polly asked, her eyebrows drawing together in worry.

"Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," Veronica took in a deep breath, and her lips curved upwards in a small smile. "Actually...I'm pregnant."

"What?!"

"Oh my _god_!"

"When did you find out?!"

"How far along are you?!"

"Okay, okay," Veronica let out a laugh and shook her head. "One at a time."

"When did you find out?" Polly pressed, her eyes glittering with excitement as she reached across the table to clasp Veronica's hands.

"A couple of days ago. I mean—I sort of found out about a week or so ago, because I took a home pregnancy test, but those things can be wrong, so I booked in a doctors appointment and...He confirmed it the other day," Veronica's smile stretched wider.

"This is amazing!" Betty gushed, getting up from her seat to come over and give her another tight hug. It only took a minute or so before Polly and Veronica were gushing about how their children were going to be so close in age, that they were going to be best friends, that Veronica was glad Polly was going through all of this first, because then she would be able to prepare Veronica for what was to come. Betty watched the pair of them—her big sister and her friend—and she couldn't help but feel like she was missing out on something.

She had given up a lot when she had left Riverdale and not planned on returning. She had given up the safety and security of the town that she had grown up in, she had given up her boyfriend, and although they were still friends, she had also given up that close friendship she had with the people she had grown up with.

She didn't regret leaving, it had been the right decision for her at the time. And she would be eternally grateful for Cheryl's decision to come with her, just a month after she had left. It wasn't as though people didn't leave Riverdale to go to University and study, a lot of them leaving for good—teenagers grew and moved away, that was just a part of life—but Betty's heart had always belonged to Riverdale and those who lived there.

And now she was back, she was being faced with the people that she had loved for so many years, and relationships had shifted and changed while she had been away, just like the people had. Logically, she had known that would happen, but it felt different when it was right in front of her face.

Polly was pregnant, and Betty would soon be an aunt.

Veronica was also pregnant, and the manager and director of a porn studio. She was also engaged to Archie—the boy that Betty had grown up next to, who had joined the Serpents motorcycle gang when he fifteen.

And Jughead...Jughead was older, somehow he was even better looking...

And even after all this time, one thing hadn't changed at all.

She still turned into a bumbling mess when he put his lips on hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in updating !  
> Leave a comment and let me know what you think :)


	7. Chapter 7

When Betty worked into work on Tuesday, there were two uniformed police officers standing at the end of the bar, talking to Nancy. The bar hadn't opened yet, it was only three o'clock, but Betty's shift started then so she could help Nancy set things up, make sure everything was clean and ready to go. There had been no other cars around the back, other than Nancy's, and she hadn't even seen a police car outside. As she shut the front door and flicked the lock back in place, she looked over her shoulder to the main road, and noticed that the police car was parked further up the block, outside another bar that had a night club above it as well, that opened in the weekends.

"All we're asking is that you keep an eye out," the first officer was saying. "This is the third kid that's ended up in the hospital in the past two months, and the first two didn't make it."

"You don't need to remind me, Oscar," Nancy sounded annoyed, not as sympathetic as Betty would expect for whatever it was that had gotten three children put in hospital. "I know how serious this is. You don't need to keep coming around here and reminding me." As Betty got closer, she noticed that the second officer there looked uncomfortable, his eyes flickering between Nancy, the first officer, and the door.

"Well, with someone of your past, you're more likely to hear something than, say, the flower shop owner down the road," the officer named 'Oscar' continued.

"Someone with my past?" Nancy snorted. "You mean, because you guys have some outdated file that said I dated one of the Serpents?"

"I think that we should probably be moving on to the next bar," the second officer piped up before Oscar could say anything else. "We've held up Ms Nancy here long enough." Oscar looked toward the officer, and then spotted Betty standing near the entrance way, both hands gripping the handle of her bag. The two officers said their goodbyes to Nancy under their breath before walking toward the door. Betty stepped out of their way to let them past, and the second officer left, but Oscar paused.

"Is there a problem, officer?" Betty raised an eyebrow at him.

"Elizabeth Cooper, am I right?" He asked.

"Yes," Betty wanted to ask _why_ and _how_ he knew who she was, but from the way the Nancy was still glaring at him, she kept her mouth closed. Oscar looked between her and Nancy, and then left with his partner. Betty locked the door for a second time, and then turned her wide eyes toward Nancy. "Who the fuck was that?"

"Oscar Castillo," Nancy curled her lip in distaste. "He transferred into the Riverdale PD about two years ago, and he's a real asshole."

"He thinks you're guilty by association?" Betty rolled her eyes. "How long ago did you even break up with him?"

"A year out of high school," Nancy replied with a sigh and a shrug. "But that man seems to follow me around like a bad smell wherever I go."

"To be fair," Betty's lifted an eyebrow. "Chuck was always an asshole. He's probably happy that his issues follow you around."

"That's true," Nancy sighed.

"And what was he talking about? With the kids in hospital?" Betty continued as she put her bag down on the bar, hoisting herself up onto one of the barstools. "And two of them have died? What the hell is going on—I haven't heard anything the papers and Polly hasn't mentioned anything."

"It's...It hasn't really made the papers because it's been spread out over a couple of different districts, and it just looks like kids are overdosing," Nancy picked up a glass that she must have been drying before the police interrupted her. "That in itself isn't all that strange, but the thing is, they don't know what the drug is. This is the third kid in the area that has ended up in hospital on life support, but they don't know what the drug is that's doing it to them, all they know is that it's the same one."

"Shit," Betty let out a long sigh. "That's horrible."

"The first one was about a month ago, a seventeen year old girl. She died just a few days after being admitted into hospital. And then the second one was two weeks ago, another girl, sixteen, and she held on for almost a week. Now there's been a third," Nancy had moved her way through a line of shot glasses with the name of the bar emblazoned across the side, tipping them upside down as she finished drying them. "This new cop transferred in from somewhere in Chicago, and he seems to still be stuck in this big city state of mind, thinking that he can just stomp in here and get his way."

"He thinks that the Serpents have something to do with it? That's why he's talking to you?" Betty's eyebrows pulled together. The Serpents _definitely_ dealt drugs, and not just weed and ecstasy, but also heroin. They were also into running guns and weapons, turning out profits from the pornography industry, intimidating and carrying out hits for hire. The Serpents were _dangerous_ people, Betty didn't totally realize just _how_ dangerous they were when she was eighteen, it was only once she had some space between herself and Riverdale that she realized.

But they were careful.

Selling drugs to teenagers that would draw unnecessary attention to them, and that didn't sound right.

"Yup," Nancy pursed her lips as she looked toward the door that the two officers had just disappeared through. "Kevin said that Oscar was demoted in his department back in Chicago because there were some stalking charges that were brought up against him from an ex-girlfriend. They ended forcing him out, transferring him here because they just wanted him off their hands. And now he's deciding to make our lives living hell because we're nowhere near as exciting as what he's used to."

"And he's fixating on you, because they have no other leads?" Betty surmised.

"Something like that," Nancy muttered.

"He seems like a creep," Betty curled her upper lip.

"You got that right," Nancy said before shaking her head from side to side. "Anyway," she said with a cheery voice, obviously trying to put it behind her. "That's so not what we need just before work. Help me with the glasses, yeah?"

* * *

A week went by, and Betty had easily slipped back into the bartending gig. It wasn't where she had thought her career would be heading a year ago, but life had a way of turning itself on it's head like that. It wasn't like money was a too much of a big deal. She didn't have a cushy trust fund like Cheryl did, but she still had some of the inheritance money from her parents, as well as her own savings, and it wasn't as though she had to spend anything on rent now that she was back in Riverdale. But she _liked_ working, she couldn't just sit around and do nothing through the day, so this job worked fine for now. And at least it was with people that she got on with.

She reconnected with Kevin Keller, who had come back to Riverdale after he had finished his senior year in Seattle with his mother. He had become a hairstylist and he had his own salon now. He was dating Joaquin DeSantos, who had joined the Serpents MC about a year ago, and was still earning his patch, one of the two prospects in the club at the moment.

Kevin's father had sent him away to finish his schooling with his mother in an attempt to get him away from the life that Riverdale was slowing sucking him into, the biker life that had worried Betty's own parents. Clearly that hadn't worked, since Kevin had come two years after he finished high school, working his way through his chosen profession. When they were teenagers, Betty had always known that there must have been some agreement between Sheriff Keller and the Serpents, given just how much power and control they club had over the town. It wasn't until she was eighteen, and actually in a relationship with Jughead and got a closer look at the way that the Serpents ran that she saw just how in the Serpents pocket the Sheriff was.

He was a good man, and had been incredibly supportive when Kevin had come out as gay, which Kevin hadn't been expecting, but even good man had their pressure points. The Serpents had obviously found the Sheriff's, which had been crippling mortgage repayments and alimony, and once they had him covering up their deeds once or twice, then they had him.

She had also been spending more time with Veronica, much to Cheryl's chagrin. The two girls had had a bit of a rivalry when Veronica's family had first moved to Riverdale. Even though Veronica didn't actually come to high school with them, still at her fancy boarding school where she was only able to come back in the weekends and holidays, because of her quick friendship with Betty and Archie, she quickly became a staple in their gang. Cheryl claimed that there was only room for one 'rich bitch' per group, and given both of their stubborn natures, they butted heads frequently.

They had gotten over it a bit as they had gotten older, but given the choice, Cheryl wouldn't come with Betty when she said that she was going over to visit the raven haired girl.

And being back with Archie, who was her oldest friend, seeing him around town every couple of days, just relaxed her in a way that only the red head could. When they were in daycare, it had been her and Archie. Jughead had come along when they were six, and the three of them had formed a mismatched trio. Betty's parents had never approved of her friendship with Jughead, because of his parents involvement with the Serpents, but they had never tried to pull her away from Archie. At least until he turned sixteen and became a prospect of the MC.

Then there was Jughead...

"Betty," came a voice from in front of Betty, and the blonde blinked, looking up from the box of cereal that she had been staring at for a good couple of minutes, standing in the middle of the grocery aisle.

"FP," Betty blinked in surprise.

"Elizabeth Cooper," Forsythe Pendleton Jones II, or FP as he was more commonly known as, breathed and then a smile slowly spread across his face. "You are as beautiful as ever, girl," he told her, leaning forward and giving her a tight hug. Betty was a little surprised by the action, but it felt good. FP had always been good to her, just like the rest of the Serpents family. "Juggie told me that you were back."

"Yeah," Betty licked her lips nervously as she stepped back. "Not too sure how long I'll be here, but it feels good to be back." It was hard, but true.

"Bet it feels a bit different from the big city," FP continued with an easy smile. Two older woman had begun walking in their direction—Betty could see them over FP's shoulder—but as soon as they caught a glimpse of the president of the local motorcycle club, they turned on their heel and quickly turned away.

"Yeah, it is a bit," Betty shrugged a shoulder.

"And seeing my son around must bring back some memories," FP gave her a knowing look.

"Uh..." Betty's eyes flickered to the side.

"It's okay, it's okay," he assured her. "I'm not going to ask you a bunch of questions, make you feel uncomfortable. I really _do_ need to get going, we've got a meeting. But it was good seeing you, girl. And know that you're always welcome at the club house." Betty felt herself smile again, returning FP's hug as he reached for her again. 'Church' was what they called it when they had a club meeting, given it was just as sacred for them to get together and meet as common church was. "I'll see you around, girl," FP gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and then left.

Betty watched him go, confusion mixed up in her stomach, before she went back to staring at the box of Frosted Flakes again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, guys!  
> Here's the next chapter!

"Betty," Jughead's voice was quiet in dark but still loud enough to make a shiver run through Betty's body. She jolted in surprise, and then huffed under her breath and shook her head as she walked quickly toward her car.

"We really need to stop meeting like this," she stated as she unlocked her car, determined just to _get in_ and _go home_. But the second Jughead started walking toward her, she knew that she was going to wait, find out exactly what it was that he wanted. It was late, almost two in the morning, and it was pitch black, and they were alone in the tiny car park behind the bar once again.

"Well, maybe if you gave me your number, then we wouldn't _need_ to meet like this," Jughead pointed out.

"Or you could come up to me in the middle of the day on the street like a normal person, and not in a back alley in the middle of the night like a creep," Betty reasoned, opening up the door of her Camaro and tossing her handbag inside. Jughead rested his hand on the metal frame of the door, tilting his head to the side as he looked at her under the pale light from the moon.

"Normal people are overrated," Jughead responded with a shrug.

"So what is it that you want?" Betty sighed, looking down at her hands where she was still holding her keys, turning them over, digging the sharp edges into the soft palm of her hand. Jughead was still looking at her, a gentle expression on his face, but at her question, he straightened up, pushing his shoulders back a little and squaring his jaw.

"I heard that Oscar Castillo paid you a visit," he stated. Betty blinked at him, surprised by the way the conversation had turned.

"How did you know about that?" She frowned.

"Sheriff Keller," Jughead responded.

"Well, then maybe he didn't tell you the whole story," Betty said. "He was here, but he was talking to Nancy, and then I showed up from work."

"He's got a file with your photo," Jughead's words were clipped and Betty's eyebrows raised. "Keller told him that you were only just back in town, that you've got nothing to do with us, that you've got nothing to do _with me_ ," the words actually looked as though they hurt Jughead to say, the slight light from the moonlight casting a shadow over half of his face and showing the grimace that he was making. "He's told him to stop harassing the girls who were affiliated with our club—he seems to have a hard on for going after woman, if the reports of him stalking his ex girlfriend are true."

"I appreciate you looking out for me," Betty said carefully. "But I'm a big girl. I can look after myself."

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to," Jughead told her quietly.

"I'm not your problem anymore," Betty swallowed hard. "We're not together anymore."

"You were never a _problem_ , Betty—"

"You _know_ what I meant," she sighed, rolling her eyes upward.

"Look, Betty, I'm _trying_ to help," Jughead pursed his lips together, taking his hand off the frame of her car door.

"Okay," Betty took in a deep breath through her nose, closing her eyes for a moment as she composed herself. "I know that you're trying to help, and I appreciate it, but I'm fine. If he's got questions for me, then I can deal with that, because I _don't know anything_. I don't need you to watch out for me, so thank you, but no thank you." Jughead pressed his lips together, obviously annoyed at her rebuttal, but taking a step back, respecting the distance that she was asking for. Betty felt bad for a moment, because she knew that all he was doing was looking out for her—just like he always had—but then she squashed down that feeling. "I'll see you around, Juggie."

"Betty," Jughead didn't step forward, didn't try to reach out for her, but there was a twinge in his voice that made her stop from sliding into her car. "Why are avoiding me?"

"Because..." Betty sighed as she tried to find the right answer. "Because what we had is over. We both know that. The other night...That was us, sinking into old habits, because this town just seems to bring up old memories. It's the first time we'd properly seen each other since we broke up and we just...Got caught up."

"I told you then, and I'll tell you again," Jughead's eyes narrowed. "I don't believe for a second that it's over." Betty swallowed hard, looking at his blue eyes which were staring at her intently. They looked right into her soul, staring right through her excuses and her bullshit just like they always did—just like the way she looked at him. Her lips parted to say something, to try and disagree with him, but that was when he did reach out, gripping her shirt and jerking it up slightly.

During their impromptu love tryst at the drive in, it had only been her lower half that had been exposed. Her shirt had slipped up a little and he had caught a glimpse of the ink, and part of him had wanted to pull up her shirt so that he could lave his tongue over it—just like he used—but he hadn't wanted to break the moment and risk her gathering her thoughts, and maybe regretting what they were doing.

"If you really wanted to forget me and put everything behind you, you would have gotten rid of this," he stated, staring down at her exposed skin, at the ink that was shown by the moonlight streaming down on them.

The outline of the letter J, with a snake—specifically a serpent—wrapping it's way around the later. Above the letter and the reptile, was a little crown.

It symbolized Jughead, the prince of the Serpents.

"Stop that," Betty snapped at him, shoving her shirt back down. "Fucking hell, Jughead, what are you trying to do here, huh? What the fuck are you playing at?" Jughead's eyebrow lifted at the sudden rush of anger coming off the blonde. The anger was good, though, because it meant that he had struck a nerve, that he was telling the truth and _she_ knew it. She let out a short, angry breath and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "What do you even _want_?"

"You, Betty," Jughead snapped back at her, feeding off her anger. "It's always been you that I wanted! Shit, you should know that. I tried to get in contact with you for so long after you left, even after you changed your number, I begged Veronica for your new number for a whole other year. When I finally got the fucking hint, I spun out, and there's a couple of months in there that I don't even remember." Betty blinked in surprise at him. "When you came back to Riverdale, for Alice's funeral, I wanted to see you then. I wanted to come to your house, to see you, comfort you, and—shit, I don't know," he let out an exasperated growl and threw his hands up in the air. "Prove to you that you needed. I went to the church, I went to the funeral, and you looked...Fuck, you looked beautiful. You looked fucking perfect, even when you were crying. But Veronica saw me, and she said that I was being selfish. That if I really loved you then I wouldn't be taking advantage of you when you were grieving."

"I didn't see you at the funeral," Betty murmured, blinking at him.

"I was in the back, dad and I were both there. I think dad mainly came just to make sure I didn't do something stupid," Jughead rolled his eyes and let out another annoyed huff. "After V spoke with me, I fucked off out of town, so I wouldn't risk running into you while you were still here." Betty's big green eyes stared up at him. "And then when Archie and V said that you were coming back, after all this time, I just..." he stepped away from her, his hand going up to his floppy black hair. Betty watched as he moved away, turning his back on her as he dragged in a deep breath.

His hair was longer than it used to be, and he wasn't hiding it under a beanie like he used to. It had been some weird, protective habit that he had when he was younger—he had never been seen without it. Somewhere in the past couple of years he seemed to have shed that habit, and it meant that his hair was free to flop over his forehead, adorably hanging near his blue eyes.

Betty gritted her teeth together at that thought.

She really shouldn't be thinking about anything to do with Jughead and the word _adorable_ if she was trying to put distance between herself and him.

"Jughead, I'm sorry," Betty tried to keep her voice steady, even though she felt shaky at Jugheads admissions. She tried to be strong, because she needed to get this out. "I got carried away the other night, and I shouldn't have...I shouldn't have let it get that far. I'm sorry." Jughead stayed silent, still facing away from her. She felt like a bitch, and she knew that she wasn't telling the full truth but it was better just to squash this down before it even started. It had been almost too much for her to bare the first time, she couldn't risk getting herself too caught up again. "Thank you...For telling me about the cop. I'll talk to Sheriff Keller. But me and you—" her voice wobbled slightly. "Me and you are over, Jughead. We've been over for a long time." Jughead stared at her steadily, his jaw set, his chin jutted forward, as though waiting for her to back down.

She didn't.

Even though there was a pressure behind her eyes, and her chin wobbled, and her nose was twitching because it felt the skin was stretching too tightly over her face, she didn't back down.

She waited a few moments, maybe waiting for him to say something, and then she turned around and got in her car. Jughead was still standing there, just a few feet away, and she had to force herself not to stare at him through the window as she reversed from her spot and drove away.

Betty managed to hold it together, until she was out of the driveway, and on the main street. It was early hours of the morning, and the streets were almost completely empty, and she was relieved, because she completely dissolved into tears as soon as she knew that she was out of eyesight. Her hands were shaking around the steering wheel, and her shoulders were shaking, and she could barely see. She managed to get almost the whole way home before she almost swerved of the road and into a ditch.

" _Fuck_!" The blonde hissed out as she stamped her foot down on the brake and managed to stop her car. Then she curled her body forward, resting her forehead on the wheel of the car and letting the tears flood down her face.


	9. Chapter 9

Cheryl knew that something was wrong with Betty the minute she got home.

But, thankfully, the redhead didn't ask her about it.

A few weeks went by, and one night when Betty came back to her childhood home after a long shift at the bar, she walked in on Cheryl and Josie McCoy getting it on in the lounge. She had been so surprised that she had just stared at the two women for a moment before letting out a laugh and slumping against the door frame. Josie's eyes widened and she pulled down the blanket that was over the back of the couch, covering up her body, while Cheryl just smirked over at her blonde friend.

"Hi Josie," Betty smiled awkwardly and waved. "It's been a while."

"Hey, Betty," Josie smiled back at her tightly.

"So, uh," Betty put her hand up to her hair, tugging at the end of her braid. "I'm gonna head upstairs, but, Cher—you know you have a bedroom here, right?" She raised an eyebrow at her half naked roommate, who just continued to smirk and shrugged.

"Can't help where the mood strikes," she sung out and Betty rolled her eyes before waving again at Josie before heading up the stairs to her room. Cheryl and Josie had had a thing back in high school—but at the time, Josie's mother had been the mayor of the town, and powerful, dark skinned women didn't always have things easy, and Josie didn't want to cause any problems for her mother by adding a bisexual daughter to her resume. It had caused some problems between them, because Cheryl wanted to flaunt their relationship—she wanted to hold Josie's hand and kiss her at football games, whereas Josie wanted to keep everything low key. It had ended up smothering out their relationship before it really had a chance to grow, but Betty knew that her best friend had held a flame for the girl in the years that followed, even if Cheryl never really spoke about it.

Josie was just one of those subjects that they avoided, just like Jughead.

Everyone had that one person that they just couldn't get over, not properly.

Betty wanted to fall into bed, but she smelt like beer and a mixture of cheap cologne that had come from the patrons in the bar, and she would gag if she woke up in the morning still smelling this way. She could still hear giggling and hushed voices from downstairs, so she was guessing that Cheryl and Josie were just going to continue their little party of two in the lounge, so she didn't bother shutting the bathroom door as she turned on the shower and grabbed a towel out of the hallway cupboard.

She was tired, and all she was thinking about was getting into bed.

That had been her default setting over the past couple of weeks.

She had picked up extra shifts with Nancy, and started running more—every morning and sometimes a second time around in the afternoon if she didn't have a shift that night. She spent a lot of time with her sister, helping her around the house, and cleaning out her childhood home, even though Polly had already taken care most of it. Betty had decided to paint the back rooms, and had been making her way through them over the past week, choosing out the coloured paints, moving everything out of the rooms and slowly starting.

It had been keeping her busy and occupied.

Which was exactly what she had needed in the past few weeks.

* * *

Archie sighed as he looked across the club house and saw a blonde wrapped around his best friend. It wasn't as though the sight shocked him; girls in tiny clothes—some of them even missing clothes—drunk off their faces and pawing at Serpents wasn't unusual. It was almost three in the morning, and the only reason Archie was even still conscious was because Veronica had been waking up at all hours of the night with cravings for milkshakes from _Pop's_ , the twenty-four hour diner. He hadn't gotten any texts from her so far, but he wouldn't put it past her.

Yesterday she had woken up a four-thirty, and had been craving banana and chocolate shake.

FP and Archie's own father, Fred Andrews, had disappeared a long time ago to their private rooms in the back of the club house—FP with an attractive brunette and Fred with Archie's mother. For a long time, Archie's mother had refrained from dipping her toes into the biker world. She had been young when she had gotten pregnant with Archie, and she hadn't really known what to do. Her parents lived in Chicago and she moved out there for a short while, before realizing she couldn't deprive Archie of a father. So she had moved back, and she had completed her lawyers degree by correspondence. Even though Fred was a Serpent, she hadn't actually set a foot into the club house until Archie was sixteen, and became a prospect.

Now, she was a regular feature, and had become a mothering figure to the bikers, especially the younger ones. Archie would never stop being thankful for her change in heart, because he remembered the fights that would happen between his parents when he was younger, yet here they were, and they were happier than ever.

Dilton Doiley, who was eighteen, and the latest prospect of the gang, had passed out on top of the pool table at the far end of the club house, and two of the other drunk Serpents had ripped open his shirt and started scribbling across his chest in a vivid that would probably take weeks to properly wash over. Archie couldn't help but smirk when they started drawing a phallic shaped image on his cheek, reaching toward the young mans mouth.

Archie's eyes flicked back toward Jughead—his best friend for as long as he could remember. Sabrina Spellman had been wet for Jughead ever since she had come into town, three years ago. She had become a regular feature at the club house, and she was good friends with Tina and Ginger Lopez. She bounced between a couple of the club members, just like all the Serpent slags who hung around the club, but Jughead was her favourite. She worked at a strip club in town, one that was owned by the Serpents and run by Midge Klump, who was the on-off girlfriend of Moose Mason, a Serpent brother.

A couple of months ago, for the first time since Betty, Jughead had even made a passing comment about maybe taking Sabrina out on an actual date, rather than just taking her into the back rooms. But nothing really happened with that, and now that Betty was back, Archie knew for a fact that nothing would, at least not as long as the blonde was in the town. She had a hold over Jughead's heart, just like when they were teenagers.

For a few days, Jughead was happy. Archie wasn't sure what had happened, but he was guessing that it was something _good_ , between Jughead and Betty. But then almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone, and Jughead was a blank slate again.

"Arch!" Archie blinked when he realized that he was being called for. He tightened his grip around the neck of the beer he was holding and looked in the direction of the voice. Reggie Mantle had one arm around a red head, and the other around a raven haired girl, and he was swaying on his feet. From the glazed look in his eyes and his slack jawed expression, it was a wonder he was standing at all. "Can I take your room tonight?" There were several rooms that had beds in the back of the; one for FP—the president, one for Fred—the vice president, one each for Jughead and Archie—the sons of the Serpent royalty, sometimes they were jokingly referred to as the 'Serpent Prince's', and the last one on the ground floor was their meeting room. Then there were two other rooms, tiny, poky rooms under the stairs, one that was used for storage and one that had two narrow beds in it.

"Uh," Archie wrinkled his nose as he looked at the three of them, but then he shrugged a shoulder and let out a short laugh. "You better sanitize every surface in their down once you're done."

"Of course, brother," Reggie laughed and then turned around, taking the two girls with him. The red haired girl wasn't wearing any underwear, and her skirt was hitched up near her waist, showing off most of her ass to the ones who were still conscious in the room. Archie shook his head with a half smirk pulling at his lips. There was no way in hell Reggie would remember to clean up after himself, and Archie didn't doubt that he would go in there with tomorrow and there would be sheets and blankets strewn everywhere and probably—and unfortunately not the first time—used condoms.

Archie took in a deep breath and leaned back into the arm chair he had claimed a couple of hours ago, and couldn't stop his eyes from going back to Jughead.

Things had gotten better for his best friend about a year or so after Betty left. They still weren't great, and given Jughead was pretty much the _worst_ person when it came to opening up and talking about his feelings, Archie didn't really know exactly what was going on in his head. There had been three occasions where Jughead had actually opened up about Betty, and he had only been sober twice of them. The conversations had been stilted and all over the place, but they had given Archie an idea of where Jughead's head was at.

He loved Betty.

He missed Betty.

He felt horrible about the way things ended.

He blamed himself.

He wanted her back.

Those had all been in the year that had followed Betty leaving, and then after that, it was like he refused to let himself speak about her. Archie knew that he had gone to Veronica, and asked for her number, and then after that was done, after Veronica had contacted Betty and Betty had begged her not to give it to Jughead, it was as though that had cemented things for him. She didn't want contact with him, she had moved on—or at least far away—and he needed to do the same thing.

Archie was glad. While he loved Jughead and he loved Betty and he loved them _together_ , if Betty had decided that she was done, Jughead needed to accept that and move on.

Archie's phone started vibrating in his pocket and he pulled it out, his fiancee's name flashing on the screen. He swiped his thumb across the screen to answer the call.

"Hey, baby," he murmured. "You want a shake?"

"Strawberry and mango?" Came Veronica's sleepy voice and Archie made a face before laughing.

"Yeah, I'll be there in half an hour," he told her.

"Thank you," Veronica responded and ended the call. Archie tucked his phone away and put his beer down on the floor. It would get picked up in the morning when the Serpent slags cleaned the place up.

"Jug—Juggie, I'm heading out," Archie said as he headed toward the door. Jughead glanced up at him, with bloodshot eyes and shiny lips. He was stoned, and from the way that Sabrina was rubbing at his crotch, Archie was guessing that they'd be heading down to one of the back rooms soon.

"Yeah, say hi to Ronnie for me," Jughead mumbled before twisting his fingers in Sabrina's blonde hair and tugging her forward, their lips coming together. Archie just sighed and headed out of the club house.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back !  
> Hope you guys had a great break !  
> Also , I've put up a couple of oneshots if you want to check those out as well :)  
> Hope you enjoy the chapter !

It was only a month away from Polly's due date and so the girls had gotten together to organize her baby shower. Initially, Penelope Blossom had said that she wanted to be the one who put the baby shower together, but thankfully Cheryl had managed to talk her out of that. So now she was heading to the grocery store just to pick up a couple of bottles of drinks before going around to the house that Polly shared with Jason. They had organized everything for the shower, except then this morning, Betty and Cheryl realized that the only drinks that they had gotten together were alcoholic ones, and they hadn't actually brought drinks that the pregnant mama's could have.

So here she was, twenty minutes before she was meant to be at Polly's, getting everything looking all pretty, she was running around the grocery store with a trolley and throwing orange juice and coconut water and fizzy drink into the cart. She winced a little at the price, given how much she had spent on the baby shower already, but it was all for Polly, her favourite—and only—sister, so she shrugged it off.

Cheryl text her a couple of times as she was paying, but Betty didn't bother replying because she was going to be seeing her in a couple of minutes. As she was walking out of the grocery store, pushing the trolley full of drinks in plastic bags, she caught sight of someone that she thought she recognized, but it had been years and so she frowned and just kept walking. The blonde made it to her car, opening up the boot and unloading the bags, and was about to start pushing the trolley back to it's bay when the girl appeared again, this time right in front of her.

"Holy shit," Betty blinked. "I thought it might be you before, but—shit, you're all grown up, JB."

"That's Jellybean to you," Forsythia Jones stated, pulling the cigarette out of her mouth and throwing it on the ground, stubbing it out with her scuffed motorcycle boots. Betty's eyes widened at the shut down look on the younger girls face. She hadn't seen Jellybean since she was nine years old, now she would be sixteen.

And she looked as though she had about as much attitude as Betty expected she would.

"So how have you been doing?" Betty asked, shifting from foot to foot, refusing to get stared down by a teenager even if she had the same death glare as her older brother.

"What happened between you and Jughead?" Jellybean asked, ignoring Betty's question and getting straight to the point. Betty faltered, the attempted smile on her face dropping right off her face and her eyes sliding to the side, the younger girl going out of focus.

"He hasn't told you?" She asked quietly.

"Nope. If he did, I wouldn't be asking you, would I?" Jellybean snapped, and Betty sighed and looked back toward the girl, taking in a deep breath.

"Look...It was no one's fault," she began. "Things sometimes just happen and...They don't work out." Jellybean let out a sigh and rolled her eyes, and didn't look at all happy with that result. Betty had known Jellybean since she was born, she even used to babysit her sometimes, and it had been funny, because Jellybean had always seemed to have something against Veronica, but absolutely loved Betty. She had been eight when her and Jughead had first started fooling around together, nine when they had officially started dating. It had only been a few weeks before her tenth birthday when Betty had left, which she had felt guilty about no end, given she was meant to take Jellybean out shopping for her first training bra, since that wasn't really something that Gladys Jones did.

"If it was no ones fault, how come you left everyone behind and didn't even say goodbye? That sort of makes it seem as though you're the one at fault," Jellybean stated. "And now that you're back in town, you look totally fine, organizing baby showers and getting all friendly again with Veronica," she jerked her chin toward the back of Betty's car, which was full of streams and banners and wrapped gifts, along with her grocery purchases. "But my brother is in such a bad mood he pretty much doesn't leave the club house and is in this constant phase between drunk and stoned. Once again, sort of sounds like _you're_ the one that made the decision, not my brother." She narrowed her eyes, which were rimmed with dark eye make up, and pursed her lips together. "Sort of seems like you were running from something, since you left all of us behind when you disappeared, it wasn't just my brother."

Jellybean was full of attitude and sass, just like her brother, and Betty really shouldn't be surprised. Even as a kid, she had a perpetually bored expression on her face and a wicked side eye, given she had been brought up in a world of bikers. She definitely didn't agree with the fact that she was smoking, but she was in no position to be giving the girl any type of advice or reprimand, and if her family was letting her do it, then that was their business. But despite the brave façade, that last sentence had sounded small, and a little bit hurt.

"JB—" Betty began, but quickly stopped at the narrow look the younger girl gave her. "Jellybean," she corrected herself quietly. "I'm really glad to see you, I've missed you. I've been keeping up with photos of you on Veronica and Archie's Facebook pages." It didn't look as the girl believed her, but Betty didn't have time for this right now. "Maybe we can catch up properly some other time, but right now, I need to go, this morning is about my sister."

"Right," Jellybean licked her lips and gave a one shouldered shrug, attempting to a fix a disinterested expression on her face, but since her last comment, it wasn't fooling Betty.

"Do you have a phone? Can I give you my number?" Betty prompted gently. Jellybean looked as though she wanted to tell the older girl to go to hell, and Betty wouldn't have chastised her if she had. But then Jellybean pulled out her phone, thrusting it out to her. Betty pressed her thumb down on the button for contacts, and quickly added her number in. As she was exiting out of the contacts app, she saw the background picture was a selfie of Jellybean with some boy her age, who had dark hair with a blue stripe dyed through the middle, and a self conscious smile on her face.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Betty asked with a small smile as she gave the phone back.

"No," Jellybeans lips flattened in a light. "He was just a friend. And he's dead." Betty's smile dropped and her face paled.

"What?" She managed to choke out, even though her voice felt dry coming from her throat.

"He's dead," Jellybean repeated, her words clipped. "Those deaths that are happening around here? He took some of those drugs, and he died. He was one of the first ones. His name was Phillip." She looked down at the heavy black motorcycle boots that she was wearing, and Betty saw a slight quiver in her lower lip, and she wanted to gather the girl in her arms and give her a tight hug, but she stopped herself.

"I'm sorry," Betty murmured.

"It's whatever," Jellybean muttered, and then the girl turned on her heel and stalked off. Betty watched her head across the car park, and she saw her pull out another cigarette and light it up, and then she disappeared around the corner of the building. Betty felt cold, despite the fact that the sun was shining and she was wearing a cardigan, and she ran her fingers through her hair, flicking it over her shoulders, trying to compose herself.

The deaths kept on coming up, around the town, in the bar, with Veronica and Polly.

There had been six deaths in total now, five of them had been teenagers, under the age of nineteen, and one of them had been twenty-nine, a businessman who was in a nearby town. Not all of them had died in Riverdale, but three out of six had been, and one of the others lived in Riverdale, and had been away with her boyfriend for the weekend. It didn't sound as though the police were getting anywhere, at least from what Kevin was saying, and that was why the focus kept landing back on the Serpents.

The Serpents didn't deal bad drugs, however, and they especially didn't deal the hard shit to underage kids. Weed and maybe some molly, they definitely sold that to teenagers, but never the hard stuff.

Betty's phone vibrated in her pocket, and when she pulled it out, she saw she had a couple of missed messages from Cheryl, all of them telling her to get her ass over to Polly's place, they needed to finish setting the place up. Polly had gone out for breakfast with Jason, and they were meant to be done by the time they got back, so that Jason could just drop her off before he went up to Thornhill. Betty tucked her phone back into her pocket and quickly walked her trolley to the bay, before going back to her car and getting in the front seats.

The deaths were the talk of the town, and Betty didn't doubt that if she went to the bordering towns as well, it would be the main topic of conversation there as well. But Betty hadn't been paying too much attention to it all, trying not to get too involved, given she told herself over and over again that she wasn't going to be here for very long. She didn't know any of the others who had died, although she recognized the last name of one of the teenagers, and after speaking with Nancy, she knew that one of them was cousin of someone she went to school with.

But she had been gone for so long, she just didn't recognize the names.

Jellybean knowing someone that had died, someone who had been her age—still a kid—that was horrible, and it made Betty's stomach turn over. No kid should have to go through that. It was one thing when a parent died when they were young, Betty had to go through that, but it was different when it was someone your own age.

It took Betty a few minutes before she was able to calm her breathing and turn on the engine of her car.

She was almost at Polly's house before she remembered the first half of the conversation, where Jellybean had been asking what happened between her and Jughead. Part of her was surprised that Jughead hadn't told Jellybean, and if he had, then she couldn't have blamed him. The pair of them had always be close, and when Jellybean had become old enough to understand what they had gone through together, Betty wouldn't have been surprised if Jughead had opened up to her. Maybe it would have been better if he had, because from what she had heard from Archie and Veronica, he had been very close mouthed about everything.

But then that was the thing, the other part of her wasn't shocked to find that Jellybean didn't know. She wasn't even sure if FP knew, or if _any_ of the parents knew, other than Mary Andrews, who had been the only adult she had confided in at the time.

"Betty!" Cheryl rapped her knuckles against the window of Betty's car and gave her an exasperated look. "Come on, babe! We need to get this shit all finished up! Jase already told me that Polly is finishing up her breakfast!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think :)


	11. Chapter 11

Betty was still feeling guilty as she moved around the large lounge of Jason and Polly's house, thinking about Jellybean. She had been telling the truth when she had said to the girl that she thought about her, and that she had been keeping up with her growing up through pictures on Facebook, and occasionally asking Veronica about her, although sometimes that could lead to mentions of Jughead, which she had always avoided. Jellybean had been important to her when she was younger, she used to babysit her, and when she and Jughead got even closer, Jellybean was almost like a little sister to her.

Leaving without saying goodbye to Jellybean had been hard, but it hadn't meant to hurt the younger girl. She hadn't meant to hurt anyone, and now that years had passed and she could look back on what she had done, she knew that in some ways she had been extremely selfish. But she had just needed to get away and put some space between herself and everyone else, let herself grow up alone.

"Betty," Cheryl's voice was sharp and Betty lifted her eyebrows at her friend. "You're not paying any attention," she let out a long suffering sigh, as though Betty was completely incompetent. "It's meant to be going blue, pink and _then_ black," she pointed up at the streamers that Betty had been twisting and hanging around the room. "You're messing it all up, pink then blue then pink again," she sighed again.

"Alright, alright, I'll fix them," Betty muttered, stepping up onto the chair that she had been moving around the room so that she could reach the corners and hang the streamers.

"Is everything okay, Betts? You've been looking forward to this baby shower for weeks, and now it seems like you don't want to be here," Cheryl pursed her glossy red lips together and tipped her head to the side. "What's going on?"

"It's nothing," Betty began, beginning to fix up the streamers. She still believed that black might be a bit of a dark colour for a baby shower, but Cheryl demanded that they weren't going to try and stuff her baby niece or nephew into a stereotypical box and only have the blue and pink.

"It's definitely something," Cheryl stated, but then her eyes shifted to look out the window, and Betty ducked her head down so that she could see through the window as well, and she could see two cars pulled into the driveway. "People are starting to arrive, and Jase just text me and said that he would be back here to drop Polly off in about fifteen minutes, so you're getting out of this for now, but we are continuing this conversation later, you hear me?" Betty just made a non-committal noise and went back to the streamers. Cheryl let out an annoyed huff and walked out of the room, properly to greet the guests and then point them to where they could put down their presents.

For the first few hours, it was just going to be the woman at the baby shower, which unfortunately would also include Penelope Blossom, who still scared Betty, even though she was no longer a child. She didn't so much mind Rose Blossom, Cheryl's grandmother, even though a lot of other people were scared of the older woman, but there had always just been something about Penelope—about _both_ Cheryl and Jason's parents, really—that made Betty uneasy. After lunch, the men were all going to come by, Jason and his father, Archie and a couple of other Jason's friends. Generally, it would only be woman at the baby shower, and Penelope hadn't looked particularly happy about the idea of of men coming by, but Jason had said that it was Poppy's baby shower, and she wanted them to come in afterward, and so that was what they were going to do.

Everything went smoothly, even though there was a small incident where Penelope turned up her nose at the fact that they were serving sausage rolls alongside the sauteed garlic asparagus—apparently sausage rolls weren't quite up to par with what she was used to. Cheryl just rolled her eyes, and then in turn Veronica and Betty rolled their eyes, because only just a few years ago, Cheryl would have been exactly the same as her mother.

Jason and the rest of the men showed up just after they had opened all the presents, and Jason's whole face lit up when his eyes fell on Polly, and Betty couldn't stop her smile. The two of them were so head over heels in love with each other, it made her heart beat a little faster and her mind float to certain Serpent.

"It's not going to be long until we're throwing one of these for Ronnie," Betty said with a grin, nudging Archie in the side as they carried dirty dishes into the kitchen. Archie got a wide, dumb smile on his face and Betty laughed.

"Hopefully more than one," he stated. "Hopefully there'll be three or four more."

"Shit, is Veronica aware of how many ginger munchkins with expensive clothing tastes you're hoping to pop out?" Betty laughed in surprise.

"Maybe we've only talked about one or two, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to wear her down," Archie grinned. It felt good to be talking to Archie, who had been her closest friend when she was younger. Of course they were still good friends as they had grown, but then Jughead had joined their little gang, and Veronica later on as they had gotten older, as well as Kevin and Cheryl, and they just weren't as close as they used to be. She had even had a slight crush on Archie when they had first met, when they were four when his parents moved in next door to them, and their first kiss had been shared when they were six in a sandpit.

She hadn't really seen him all that much since she had been back in town, and she had been worried that maybe Archie was avoiding her because of what had happened between her and Jughead. She couldn't really blame him if he was, but it still hurt a little at the thought.

"Hey," Archie had stopped trying to consolidate all of the food onto just a couple of plates rather than spread out over multiple dishes, and he reached out to touch Betty's arm gently. "Are you alright? Your expression went down _real_ quickly just then." Betty tried to cover up her fallen face with a quick smile.

"Yeah, I'm okay," she told him. Archie didn't look certain, and he paused before continuing.

"Look, is this about...Is this about Jughead? Because—" he cut off when there were a few rapid beeps from his pocket. Archie hesitated, not looking as though he wanted to end their conversation too quickly, but when there were a few more beeps, he took his hand off her arm and pulled out his phone. Betty watched his face as the gentle look he was wearing before shifted, and his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth turned down.

"What is it—" Betty was interrupted when Veronica and Polly came into the room, both with big smiles on their faces until they sensed the grim atmosphere.

"What's wrong, baby?" Veronica asked, coming over to stand next to her fiancee and resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Uh," Archie let out a short, hard breath. "Another kid has died, of a drug overdose. Sixteen year old girl." Polly's expression was pained as she seemed to instinctively place a hand over her swollen stomach. Betty sighed as she leaned against the bench.

"This whole thing is just...It's _awful_ ," Polly sighed. "It's horrible."

"What is?" Clifford Blossom asked as he came into the kitchen, carrying an empty margarita glass that he was carrying in. Betty idly noted at the back of her mind that the glass was the one Penelope had been drinking from, and this was about her fourth empty drink, but then she blinked and focused back on what was happening.

"Another girl has been killed," Polly informed him with a pained expression, and she began rubbing her stomach in clockwise motions. Betty took a step to close the gap between herself and her sister and linked arms with her, giving it a comforting squeeze. "From those drugs that are going around." Not one person in the room missed the way Clifford turned his eyes toward Archie accusingly, but he was smart enough not to say anything. Pretty much everyone in the township was blaming the Serpents, but just like Clifford, they kept their accusations limited to nasty looks.

"I don't want this kind of conversation happening at my grandchilds shower," Clifford stated with a stern voice. Steely silence fell over the room before Archie jerked his head in a nod and turned to Veronica.

"I need to go," he said to her quietly. "I need to go and check in."

"I know," Veronica said, her voice soft and understanding. Archie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and then looked over at the two blonde woman.

"Congratulations again, Polly," he said, attempting a smile but not really managing.

"Text me if you think you're going to be long!" Veronica called out as Archie left, and he waved his hand over his shoulder as indication that he heard her. Veronica sighed as she looked back at the ones remaining in the room. "This whole business is just horrible," she muttered. Polly hummed her agreement under her breath, and Betty pursed her lips together. As much as she hated to agree with Clifford, this was meant to be a happy occasion, and Polly didn't deserve to have the day brought down.

"Come on," Betty squeezed Polly's arm. "Let's go back in there and open your presents!" There was a whole array of presents, most of them purchased by Cheryl and her parents, and Veronica admitted that she had had her mother fly some more things in from Paris. Betty didn't have much in the way of money, but she had definitely blown her budget when shopping for presents, also buying some things for her sister, loading up on Polly's favourite chocolates as well, since the girl was _literally going to push a human out of her_ , and deserved to have her favourite foods handy.

"That sounds like a good idea," Polly gave Betty a grateful smile, and the two sisters lead the way back into the lounge, Clifford and Veronica close behind.

"Pre-sents! Pre-sents! Pre-sents!" Cheryl cheered, clapping her hands together and earning a frown from her mother, who would probably have reprimanded Cheryl about being more ladylike if they were sitting next to each other. Polly sat down on the couch, patting the spot next to her for Betty to take as Cheryl handed her the first present, wrapped up in gold and white paper with a fancy bow on top.

"That one's from me!" Midge grinned from where she was sitting. Betty smiled at Midge, who she never could have seen as an owner of a strip club—one of the big sources of incomes for the Serpents—and the girl smiled back, charmingly. They worked their way through the big pile of presents, Cheryl was getting drunker and had turned the music up louder. Betty shook her head with a long suffering smile as her best friend sang off key. Polly was opening up one of the last presents, which was a family heirloom—a beautiful ruby necklace—from grandmother Blossom, when Betty put her arm around her sister.

"Mum and dad would be so happy for you right now," she murmured in her sisters ear. Polly leaned into her sister, resting her head on Betty's shoulder.

"Thanks, Betty," she whispered, holding the Blossom family heirloom tightly in her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed the update :)


	12. Chapter 12

Betty was taking up the final wine glasses that had been gathering in the lounge—mainly around Penelope's perch in the comfiest armchair—when her phone started ringing. Cheryl and Veronica were the only ones left at the house with Polly other than Betty, and Betty considered ignoring it, but when she pulled her phone out, she was pleasantly surprised by the picture that flashed on her screen. She put down the wine glasses on the kitchen bench and answered the call.

"Chic!" She exclaimed. "I haven't heard from you in ages!"

"Hey, Betts," Chic Cooper replied, his voice warm although it didn't sound as though they had a very good phone line. "I know—my work schedule has been crazy lately, but when you sent me an email last week, you said that today was P's baby shower, so I wanted to ring." There was some shouting and what sounded like a loud crash not so far away from the phone and then a whole lot of cheering and Betty raised an eyebrow.

"Where are you at the moment?" She asked curiously, trying to think back to the last Facebook photos that she had seen on her brothers page.

"We're in Russia!" Chic needed to raise his voice to be heard over the cheering. "It's almost two in the morning here, but I didn't want to call right in the middle of the baby shower when Polly was being fawned over!" Betty grinned.

"Okay, I'll just go get her," Betty said as she began walking back toward the lounge.

"Thanks, Betts," Chic told her, and it sounded as though he was trying to move somewhere quieter. Chic was a travel blogger, and it meant that he was hardly ever around. The pay wasn't great, but it was good enough, and all of his flights and accommodation were subsidized as he moved from one place to the next, so he was never in one town or city for very long. It had been almost two years since Betty had seen him, and she knew it was about the same for Polly, and they only spoke on the phone every couple of months. "Hey—and Betty?" There was something in Chic's voice that made her pause before entering the lounge where the three girls were.

"Yeah?" She asked.

"Thanks for going back, and being there for Polly," Chic sighed into the phone. "I know that it mustn't have been easy for you going back there."

"It's fine," Betty told her big brother, hoping that the slight catch in her voice didn't register. "Here's Polly," she quickly pulled her phone away from her ear and walked into the lounge. "Hey, Polly—it's Chic on the phone."

"Ooh!" Polly's face lit up and she reached out her hand to take the phone from Betty.

"Do you know if he's going to be coming down when the baby is due?" Cheryl asked from where she was now sprawled out on the couch, the fancy little belt that had accessorized her outfit loosened around her waist, and her stockings pulled off and crumpled on the ground. Veronica was on the other couch, her legs resting on a foot stool, and Betty took the spot next to her.

"I'm not sure," Betty shrugged. "He might tell Polly while he's on the phone to her." The girls spoke idly for the next twenty minutes or so while Polly was talking to Chic, and then looked up when Polly came back into the room, and the pregnant woman sat down in the arm chair opposite the couch. "Is Chic going to be coming back? You know, when baby is due?"

"Yes," Polly grinned widely. "He's going to get a few weeks of leave around then, so that he can come back!"

"I'll finally meet the famous Chic," Veronica teased lightly. Chic had been long gone by the time Veronica had become friends with the group, and had only ever heard about him, seen pictures, and once spoken with him on Skype when he had contacted Polly. "I was thinking—" she cut off as she looked out the window and saw Archie's motorbike pulling up outside. "Oh, he's back faster than I thought."

"You think he's going to realize that that bike is not going to be the most comfortable place for you to be in a couple of months time?" Cheryl asked with a lift of an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he knows that we're going to need to start using my Range Rover more often," Veronica said. "Hey, Betts—could you go out and tell him I'll be out in a minute? I'm just going to pack up some of that leftover food."

"Oh, yeah, come on," Polly waved her hand at Veronica, making a move to get up. "There's heaps leftover."

"You stay there," Veronica told her. "I can go and get it myself."

"I'll go out and see Archie," Betty said as she got up.

"And I'll drink more wine," Cheryl smirked as she picked up her wine glass. Betty rolled her eyes at her and just got a smug smile in response as she let herself out the side door. Archie turned off his motorbike and took off his helmet when he saw the blonde approaching and he gave her a small smile.

"V is just getting some food to take home," Betty told him.

"All good," Archie rested the helmet in front of him. Quiet fell between them, and Betty crossed her arms over her chest. "Uh, so, Nancy mentioned that the cops knew who you were, when they came in to talk to her a couple of weeks ago."

"Nancy mentioned? Or Jughead mentioned?" Betty asked with an arch of her eyebrow. Archie tilted his head from side to side.

"Bit of both," he admitted.

"Right," Betty took in a deep breath through her nose and looked to the side. "It seems as though people are pretty set on blaming you guys for what's happening."

"Sheriff Keller is keeping the cops in line, making sure they're investigating this whole thing thoroughly rather than just half-assing it and blaming it on us," Archie stated.

"That's good," Betty nodded and her eyes dropped down to her feet, which were bare on the concrete. Silence fell over them for a few minutes, and it felt a bit strained. Betty was about to open her mouth and say something when Archie spoke first.

"What happened between you and Juggie?" His question was blunt, straight to the point, and taking Betty completely off guard. She knew that it was going to come up at some point, she had told Polly, and obviously Cheryl already knew, and she knew that it was only going to be a matter of time before Jughead told Archie. She had been about to broach the subject with him in the kitchen earlier, to try and get it out of the way, but she hadn't been prepared for it just now.

"I'm guessing you probably already know," she replied, lifting her chin and looking Archie directly in the eyes.

"You fucked," Archie nodded his head once, his eyebrows pulling together as he looked directly forward, toward the vegetable garden that Polly had been proudly working on. Betty swallowed hard, not liking the hard edge to Archie's voice. "He didn't tell me that, I'm just assuming." That surprised the blonde. "Because when you came back into town, he was steady. Maybe he was a bit nervous, anxious at having you around again, but steady. Then something changed, and for a couple of days—almost a week, I guess—he actually seemed happy. Happier than I've seen him in a long time. And then suddenly he's spiraling, and he's back where he was six years ago, after you left." Betty winced, guilt heavy on her shoulders at that.

She knew that she would have hurt him with what she said, but she had tried not to think too much about what that would have meant. Where that would have taken him.

"I don't know how much you know about how Jughead was after you left Riverdale when we were teenagers, but it wasn't good. It took us a long time to get him back to steady place," Archie continued. "I...I get why you left. And I get why you came back. But I don't get why you had to screw him," he turned his head back to Betty, obviously looking for an answer, but she didn't have one, pulling her lip into her mouth and chewing down on it hard.

"I guess..." she sighed. "I guess I just got caught up."

"Alright, and then what's next?" Archie pressed determinedly. "Are you planning on staying here and just torturing him from a distance? Or are you going to make things right?"

"I'm going back to Los Angeles," Betty stated, relieved that she could finally give him an answer.

"Why?" Archie frowned and shrugged. "Your family is here. Your friends are here. Your life—"

"—My life isn't here anymore," Betty corrected him before he could make the statement. "At least, not the life that I'm living now."

"Could have fooled me," Archie stated. "It's obvious to anyone who knows you that you belong here."

"I had to leave my job in Los Angeles to come here, because I didn't know how long I was going to be coming back for. But I loved my job, I loved working with cars—at the garage—and there's nowhere like that for me here," Betty told Archie.

"There's the Serpents garage," Archie shot back at her.

"You know I can't...You know that would be awkward," Betty sighed.

"I think you're just looking for excuses, Betty," Archie's voice was firm, verging on angry. Betty blinked him, caught off guard again. Archie had never really gotten angry at Betty before, but she could hear it coming through in his words. "I think that you're scared of letting yourself realize that there's actually a life for you back here, because you thought that you had left this whole life behind—all of us behind."

"That's—I mean, that might be part of it, but Jughead and I—we have too much history," Betty was rambling now, she could hear herself doing it. "It just wouldn't work—and I should never have gotten so caught up in the moment in the first place!"

"Your history is the reason _why_ it would work," Archie told her. "You two—you two always worked so well with each other. There was always something there. Hell, I was jealous of you guys when it was the three of us, always together. There was always just some level that you guys connected with each other, and I was always out of the loop. I know that you went through a lot—you went through it separate from each other, which wasn't fair to either of you—but I really think that you guys could make it work."

"And what happens if I go back to Los Angeles?" Betty tilted her head to the side. "What happens if me and Juggie—if me and Juggie start something, and then I go back to Los Angeles? Is Jughead going to leave the Serpents? Is he going to leave behind his family, and come with me?" Archie frowned as he stared at Betty, and she crossed her arms over her chest, hugging them around her torso.

"You really think that there's anything Jughead wouldn't do for you?" Archie asked quietly, actually sounded dumbfounded that she didn't know. Betty didn't have a response for that, and it felt as though her whole stomach flipped over, knocking the wind from her lungs and strangely making tears flood to her eyes.

Veronica came flying out of the house, calling out her goodbyes as she ran toward Archie, holding onto her plastic container tightly as she climbed onto the back of Archie's bike. Betty ducked her head before her friend could see how pale her face was, walking back inside quickly before the motorbike even backed out of the driveway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, beautiful people!

Jughead woke up with a groan, his head thumping and his stomach turning over. It had been a while since he had been as drunk as he had gotten last night. Admittedly, though, his body was probably starting to turn against him because he hadn't exactly been taking it easy over the past few weeks, and last night had just been the tipping point.

With another drug induced death happening just a few miles away from Riverdale, all eyes were firmly back on the Serpents—as if they had ever truly left them to begin with. If this was a one off thing, that would be something that they could easily shrug off, eventually there would be some other drama that would sweep up their small town. But with these deaths continuing the way they were, the Serpents were getting a lot of the heat. There were two more MC's, in the surrounding districts, one of whom the Serpents was closely associated with, another that they weren't exactly friendly with but had an agreement with, and the Serpents were certain that they were getting the same sort of flack from their own townships.

The latest girl, though...

She was the same age as Jellybean.

She even looked a little bit like her, with the black hair, heavy eyeliner, and a Black Sabbath tee-shirt and ripped pair of skinny jeans in the photos he had seen.

When they had found out yesterday, Archie had been at Polly's baby shower. Sheriff Keller had called FP first, as he usually did, and then FP had sent out a group text to the rest of the Serpents, wanting to fill all of them in as soon as possible. Jughead had felt a little bad about pulling Archie from an event that was meant to be happy, and he had looked angry and beaten down when he had left the club house to go and pick up Veronica. Jughead had wanted to ask him to stay, because the pictures of the sixteen year old that Sheriff Keller had emailed over were replaying behind his eyelids everytime he blinked, but he didn't want to ruin his best friends day anymore.

The reason for his drinking before last night had been because of Betty. Betty fucking Cooper. Last night, though, it had been about the latest death of the sixteen year old.

And, maybe, Betty had come into his mind when a familiar but not the right blonde had sashayed over to him while he was on the couch next to Moose. Sabrina had been big doe-eyes, a low cut top that teased at what was underneath, and more than willing to try her hardest to take Jughead's mind off any problems that he had.

It never really worked—not truly, but it was a temporary fix, and that's what he wanted at the moment.

"You want a bong?" Sabrina asked sleepily from beside Jughead. He didn't bother turning his head to look at her, the curtain was partially open and the sun would be killer on his eyes right now.

"Yeah," Jughead grunted, lifting up his hand to rub at his eyes, taking in a deep breath as he waited for Sabrina to get out of the bed and pack the bong that was on the low, chipped table, pressed against the side of the small room. It smelt like cheap beer and sex in the room, and if Mary Andrews came by, she would tell him off for not airing the room out. There were a couple of rooms at the Serpents club house—two at the back reserved for FP and Fred, two more that the other man could fight over, first in, first served. Then there were three upstairs, two that were reserved for Jughead and Archie, and then one other spare, like the two downstairs. Mary and some of the other old ladies—the name and term of respect, used for the wives or girlfriends—would sometimes clean up the room, but generally Mary would just order them to clean up their shit and every now and strip off their sheets and blankets so that she could take them home to wash.

"Here," Sabrina was sitting on the edge of the bed, and had dragged the low table over so that Jughead just had to sit up and lean over. She was only wearing a bra, and Jughead's cock twitched in slight interest as she shuffled back on the bed her knees fell apart. They were quiet for a long few minutes as they passed the bong back and forth, the only noise coming from the bubbling of the murky water at the bottom of the bong.

Jughead felt his brain go a bit fuzzy, from the sleepiness and the weed, and even though the hangover was definitely still present in the back of his head, it didn't feel anywhere near as bad as when he had first woken up. He moved back on the bed and laid down, closing his eyes and pressed his thumb into the corner of his eye and sighed. He felt movement at the bottom of the bed but he didn't bother opening his eyes until he felt Sabrina moving to straddle his hips.

"You want to go again?" She asked softly, her voice sultry as she leaned forward, her lips coming down to rest against his collarbone. She bit down on his neck and Jughead felt his cock hardening. Even though he wasn't particularly interested in Sabrina as a person, and definitely not in the relationship that she wanted, the sex was pretty good. They had hooked up enough times that she knew what he liked, and he tried to return the favor, but she was one of those girls that just let out over exaggerated moans to pretty much everything, so he was never too sure what she actually liked most.

"Yeah," Jughead mumbled, his hands coming up to the smooth skin of her back, his hands sliding around to her back, unhooking her bra and getting rid of the last article of clothing that she was wearing. His roughened hands were about to move down, one going to her ass and the other about to go between her legs when their was a rap of knuckles on the door. Without waiting for any response, the door swung open, and Archie took a step into the room.

He didn't look at all surprised to see Jughead and Sabrina in the bed together, although the way he pursed his lips together, a pinched expression on his cheeks, he did look a bit disappointed by it.

"I'm always down for a threesome," Sabrina sung out with a smirk, moving to sit up on Jughead's hips, not caring that she was completely on display. It wasn't unusual for there to be naked men and woman in the club, and the MC brothers had all seen each other in various throes of sex at some point or another, so Jughead didn't bother trying to cover anything up, raising an eyebrow at Archie.

"What's up?" Jughead asked, his voice still rough from sleep. Sabrina let out a little huff and being annoyed and refused to give up her perch on Jughead's lower stomach, her ass settled over his hard cock.

"You're meant to be coming with me to meet the Reapers, remember?" Archie asked, his voice curt. "Prez told you yesterday—we set the gun buy up, like, two weeks ago. I can't do this by myself."

"It's not like you're actually picking up the guns today," Jughead muttered. "You can take Joaquin—or Chuck. Pretty sure they're both here still." He _did_ feel bad bailing out on Archie, but it wasn't as though he was going to be the best company right now, and he just really wasn't in the mood to play nice with the Reapers right now. There was an agreement between the two clubs, they usually had each others backs if anything went down, but there was still tension between the two MC's. Undoubtedly, that was why FP had told Jughead and Archie to be the ones to go down and make the money drop, because he knew that they would be careful about what they said, keep things civil.

"Right, so you're not coming?" Archie did not look impressed at all.

"He's occupied," Sabrina responded smugly, and if Jughead was in his right mind at all, he would have pushed her off, made some snarky remark about how he was perfectly capable of answering for himself, and left with Archie after grabbing some clothes. But instead, he just shrugged, and didn't try to fight it when Sabrina leaned down and pushed her lips against his. Her morning breath was bad, and kissing really wasn't her strong suit, but it seemed to get the point across, because Archie let out a huff and closed the door a little harder than necessary.

"Right," Archie repeated outside the door, and he clicked his tongue loudly in frustration as he heard Sabrina began moaning, all loud and fake. He was very used to Sabrina's moans, unfortunately, and it wasn't just from Jughead, given she made her way around the clubhouse. Archie ran his fingers through his red hair, shaking his fingers through it before he let out a sigh and walked toward the stairs, jogging down them and going to the back rooms. He knocked twice on the last door, actually waiting this time for an answer rather than just going in like he had with Jughead. There was movement behind the door, and then it opened, and a shirtless FP stood there, blinking blearily at Archie. "Sorry, FP," he began. "But Jughead isn't up to coming to the meet tonight."

"He was meant to be helping with the money?" FP grumbled, rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"Yup," Archie nodded. "He's..." the red head scrunched his nose as he searched for an actual excuse. "He's not—" there was a squeal and a thump from almost directly above their heads, where Jugheads room was, and FP rolled his eyes upward and then sighed.

"This is all spiraling from Miss Betty, isn't it?" He muttered. There was no point in lying to FP, he was just asking a question he already knew the answer to.

"Something like that," Archie shrugged a shoulder. FP huffed out another sigh.

"Alright," he ran his fingers through his messy hair which could do with a haircut. "Chuck's in one of the rooms. Drag him out of bed and get some coffee in him, and get him on the back of a bike." Archie nodded, and moved on to the next door, opening it up. It was empty, and so he moved on to the next door, and Chuck was passed out on the bed. Archie didn't feel bad at all as picked up a pair of sweatpants that were on the ground and threw them at at Chucks head.

"'The fuck?" He grumbled.

"Get up," Archie said. "You need to come with me to meet the Reapers." Chuck looked a whole lot more awake, but his eyebrows were furrowed together, and he didn't look happy.

"What?" He snapped out.

"You need to come with me to meet the Reapers," Archie repeated. "Hurry up." Chuck sighed as he rolled out of the single bed and grabbed the sweatpants.

"I thought Jughead was meant to go with you," he muttered as he stood up and jerked on the sweatpants. "I had shit to do."

"And now you don't," Archie said in a mock-cheerful voice before leaving the room with a scowl on his face.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, guys!

"And this is why I love you," Midge stated as Betty pushed another glass of wine across the counter top. "You need to keep this girl around," she called out, so that her voice carried to the kitchen, to where Nancy was helping Moose unpack the crates of beers he had been bringing in from his truck out the back.

"Yeah, I know!" Nancy called out and Betty grinned across the counter at Midge.

"So you must be pretty excited," Midge sipped from her wine glass as she leaned forward, against the wooden counter top. "With your sister _and_ Veronica being pregnant. You're about to be an aunty two times over."

"Yeah, I don't know how excited my bank account is," Betty winced and shook her head. "But—no, I am excited."

"You think you're going to stick around?" Midge questioned. "I know there will be a lot of people around here who will be happy if you do." Betty opened her mouth to reply, but then she twisted her mouth and shrugged a shoulder, not sure how to respond to that question that _everyone_ seemed to be asking, and that she still didn't have an answer for. There was a thump in the kitchen behind them, and Moose came out with the moving trolley, now stacked with empty crates, and Nancy was close behind him.

"We're just going out to get the last lot," Nancy told them as she and Moose circled around the counter and headed back out of the bar. Once they had left and the front door had swung closed, Betty raised an eyebrow at Midge.

"What's going on with this, huh?" She asked, waving a finger between Midge and the door.

"With what?" Midge blinked in faux innocence.

"Don't you try that sweet as sugar act with me," Betty snorted. "I was there all through high school when you were getting A's in every class and people thought that you were this darling teachers pet, but you were actually getting it on with Moose in the music room almost every lunch time." Midge let out a laugh and shook her head, a slight red tinge to her cheeks. Back in high school, Midge had been an unassuming girl, petite with dark hair that had been long and she let fall in front of her face most of the time. She had been quiet and shy, and she didn't have many friends. Her and Moose had been an unlikely couple, getting together when she tutored him in History class. Now that she was older, she was a lot more confident in herself, and her hair was cut in a pixie cut that suited her, and she wore a bit of make up around her eyes which emphasized how round they were.

"Well..." Midge pursed her lips together. "Moose was at my club, dropping off the booze, and he said that he had to come by here after, and I thought I would come and see you guys." It was two in the afternoon, and the bar was still closed as they cleaned and restocked. Midge ran the strip club, which was solely owned by the Serpents, and they got alcohol cheap from a supplier who they also provided a couple of side bonuses to. While the bar that Nancy wasn't owned by the Serpents, because she had ties to the club and had known the members for a long time, they also supplied her alcohol at a discounted price.

"That might be what's physically happening right now, but there's more to it than that," Betty arched an eyebrow, tapping her fingers on the bar top. "Come on."

"Well—" Midge's cheeks coloured a brighter shade of red. "I think me and Moose might be getting back together. As in, seriously getting together."

"Really?" Betty wasn't particularly surprised by it. They had been a thing at high school, which had ended abruptly in their senior year when Midge had decided that she needed to focus on her academic studies. But it seemed as though this town—and Betty's grade at school in particular—just had a way of falling back into each other. Veronica would tell Betty every now and then about how Midge would show up at the Serpents clubhouse and her and Moose would disappear together, and then a few weeks later, report back that they had fallen out again.

Moose was a sweet guy, but he really wasn't the smartest. He forgot birthdays and anniversaries, and he wasn't very pro-active when it came to pushing away the skanks at the clubhouse.

"I think so..." Midge pursed her lips together and looked toward the front door. The two were almost finished up at the truck and it looked as though they were about to bring the last trolley of alcohol. "I don't know. The other times it tended to be when we were drunk and I wasn't thinking things through. But we've been talking lately...He's been coming by the club through the day when I'm doing the books or restocking, and we've just been...Talking," there was a small smile on her face, and Betty couldn't help but smile back.

"Well, I'm glad for you," Betty said and then picked up a rag just as Nancy and Moose came back into the bar.

"Hey, Betty?" Nancy asked as they came around the bar. "Can you help Moose? I just need to call my accountant, he just text me and wants to follow up on last weeks books."

"Yeah, all good," Betty nodded, giving Midge another quick smile before dropping the rag and going into the kitchen with Moose as he wheeled the trolley of crates. Betty had never really had all that much to do with Moose—he had been friends with Archie when they were back in high school, and once he had joined the Serpents, he had more to do with Jughead, but he still hadn't been someone that she had had much contact with.

"It's kind of weird, you know?" Moose mentioned conversationally as he unloaded the crates, Betty beginning to empty them. "Having you back in town and then not seeing you and Jughead together. You guys were pretty much inseparable in the last year of school." Betty pursed her lips together and hummed out a response, not really wanting to get into _that_ conversation with him.

This was exactly what she meant when she said that Moose was sweet but not the smartest.

"He seems to be a lot more broody than usual," Moose continued and Betty swallowed hard at that, her eyes moving toward the door, wondering if Midge or Nancy would come in and save her from the awkwardness she was feeling. "Although I've seen him with Sabrina, so maybe she's been making him feel better." Coming from anyone else, it would sound as though he was maybe baiting her, but Moose was just rattling things off as he finished unloading, clearly _not thinking_ about how his words affected her. "Alright!" He was all wide smiles as he straightened back up. "I guess I'll be seeing you around?"

"Uh, yeah," Betty flashed a tight smile at him. "See ya."

* * *

Cheryl wasn't at home, she had gone to Josie's place last night and she hadn't been back. A text that Betty had gotten from Cheryl a few hours ago had said that she probably wasn't going to be home that night either, which Betty just rolled her eyes and smiled at. She was glad that Cheryl was having a good time.

It had been a late night at the bar last night, and then afterwards, she had stayed for a drink with Nancy and one of the other bartenders. The topic of Midge and Moose had come up, and Nancy had laughed and shaken her head, saying that there was no way in hell she would go back to her own high school boyfriend, Chuck. He was an asshole then, but he was hot, and so she had put up with him. She had grown up, and she knew she deserved better now, and despite being in the same town as him and occasionally seeing him when he was drunk, she managed to avoid him.

Betty wasn't working today, and so she was starting to make her way through all the boxes in the attic. She had started going to the gym in town every couple of nights, and it was a good way to work out the tension that had been building in her body ever since she had come into the town. She was planning on working out later that day, after she had done some clearing out at the garage.

Polly had gone through them all before she had moved in with Jason, throwing out things that she didn't want, and carefully packing away the things that she wanted to keep. The idea of selling the house was still up in the air, but it hadn't come up in conversation again. Actually, Polly had even made an off-hand comment the other day about how it would fun to bring her baby by and see her Aunty Betty in the house that they had grown up in.

And Betty hadn't corrected her.

The blonde smiled as she pulled out a couple of her yearbooks. She flipped open her Junior yearbook and skimmed through the pages. She found their class photos and cringed at the high ponytail that she had, her go-to hairstyle when she was back in high school. She wasn't wearing any make up and she had a pink cardigan on, one that her mother would have picked out. Clary skimmed the rest of the book and put it down, reaching into another box and fumbling around blindly. What she pulled out next was something that she hadn't seen in years.

A dusty and dull-coloured tiara.

From when she had won Prom Queen in her junior year at high school.

Betty swiped at the dust as best she could, rubbing her thumb over the diamantes which had looked a hell of a lot more impressive when she was seventeen. It had been a thing to be coveted back when they were in high school.

Her junior prom had been tacky, like all proms were meant to be. Her dates had been Archie and Veronica, because she and Jughead weren't a couple at that point, and even if they were good friends, and also Jughead had said that there was no way in hell he would be caught dead at the dance. It hadn't been much of a problem for Betty though, because she still had fun with her friends.

Cheryl hadn't been too impressed when Betty had been announced as Prom Queen, with Chuck as Prom King. Cheryl had been vying for the title ever since the nominations had gone out, and Betty honestly hadn't been expecting to win when going up against the head cheerleader, but apparently she had. It had been a bit weird to have a first dance and a bunch of photos with Chuck, who was someone that she really didn't have much to do with—and honestly found a bit of a creep—but she only had to spend about twenty minutes of the whole evening with him, so she got over it.

And the after ball made up for it.

Betty's hands lowered, the plastic crown resting against her knee, as she remembered the after ball.

She had told her parents that she was staying at Veronica's, which wasn't entirely a lie, since she was going to be going there after the party, but not straight after the prom like she had told her parents. It had been at Moose's house, and Jughead had been there, and after a few hours, they had disappeared out the back. It hadn't been intentional, but she had had a lot to drink and wanted some fresh air, and so Jughead had taken her outside. They had walked—or stumbled, in Betty's case—to the trees around the property line. Jughead had been drinking, but he was a lot more used to it than Betty.

That was the first time they had kissed.

He had called her 'his Prom Queen' as he had touched his thumb to her cheek.

It had only been soft and sweet, but it had been the beginning of something beautiful.

Something beautiful, and messy.

Betty's heart ached as she blinked and came back to reality, tossing the crown into the box and quickly getting up, leaving the attic without a glance back.


	15. Chapter 15

"I honestly think that it will work out this time," Moose was saying between drags of beer. "I mean, we've both grown up a lot—"

"—And by that, you mean _you've_ grown up," Archie pointed out with a laugh. "Because Midge always acted like an adult."

"Well, yeah, I guess," Moose let out a laugh. "But, I mean, we're getting older. And I think that I'm ready to settle down and start a family and shit." Jughead didn't look all that interested in the conversation, given how hard he was focusing on peeling back the sticker on the beer bottle in his hand, but Archie knew that he was listening, given the way he would fiddle with his beanie and glance up at Moose every so often. "I just...I feel like I really want to put down some roots, get settled."

"You've lived here all your life, your family is like fourth generation in this town, and you've also got a second family in the Serpents," Jughead said with a snort. "I'm pretty sure you're as 'rooted' as they come." Archie rolled his eyes over at his best friend, and if Veronica was here, she would probably reach over and slap him on the back of his head. Jughead was still in his downward slump ever since _whatever_ it was that happened between him and Betty, and apparently that meant that he didn't think anyone else should be hopeful in their love lives either.

"I was thinking more along the lines of..." Moose actually looked a bit embarrassed, and he shuffled around in the couch that he was sitting in. Dilton walked past and he paused so that the younger man wouldn't overhear any of their conversation. Not as though he would remember any of it anyway, he was drunk, and he was stumbling after some girl in a pair of booty shorts that were more like underwear than anything else. "I was thinking more along the lines of the whole ring thing, you know?"

"A ring?" Archie hadn't been expecting that. He was thinking that Moose meant that he actually going to ask Midge to go steady with him, given they were still caught in this back and forth—pretty much since they were in high school. "Uh—are you sure about that? That's a pretty big commitment."

"And it's not as though you guys are steady or anything," Jughead added with a grumble, and Archie found himself wishing that Veronica _was_ there, so that she could slap him. "You really think that you should rush into a whole engagement?" Moose pursed his lips together and his ruddy cheeks flushed even more as he looked down at his beer bottle, before lifting his eyes and looking toward the clubhouse. It was a Thursday night, so there wasn't a big party going on at the club, but there was still a few people there. Dilton and Chuck were playing pool—playing _awfully_ —and there were three girls hanging off their every word. FP had some dark haired girl on his lap, and Mustang was on a bar stool next to him, talking loudly. Kevin was there as well, talking with Joaquin, and things looked as though they were heating up between them. From the way Joaquin's hands were reaching down Kevin's pants, they were probably going to be making a quick exit soon.

"If you think that you're ready for this, then I say go for it," Archie told Moose, knowing that at least one of them needed to be supportive. "I mean, it's not like you need to get married straight away anyway. You can do the big proposal and have a long engagement." Moose still looked a little put out, undoubtedly by Jughead's words, and Archie narrowed his eyes, staring at his best friend until Jughead seemed to realize that he was the centre of attention for the red head. He met Archie's eyes and seemed to realize that he was being a bit of a dick.

"Sorry," Jughead muttered, putting down the half empty beer bottle on the ground and standing up, rubbing a hand over his face. "I think that sounds great—really. Midge is an awesome chick," he gave them a small smile, and then headed for the front door. Archie watched his friend go, and as he looked away, he caught sight of FP, watching his son with pursed lips.

Outside, Jughead walked over to his bike. He had only had a couple of beers, so he knew that he would be fine to drive, given he was used to driving with a lot more alcohol in his system. Right now, he just wanted to get out of the club, and away from his friends and their 'happy families' vibe that they had going on.

He loved his brothers.

Everyone in the club was like family to him, a lot of them he had grown up with, and the others were people he saw almost every day. There were a couple of the people in the club that Jughead wasn't as close to as others; Dilton could be ridiculously annoying and Chuck had been a douche ever since they were in high school—but they were still a _family_.

However...Right now, he didn't want to be around them. He just wanted to be alone.

It didn't take him long to reach the gym on the other side of the town. The gym was owned by Moose's father, and the Serpents got a cheap deal when they joined. Jughead had been a member since he was in high school, just like Jellybean was now, FP believing that they both needed to be able to defend themselves, signing them both up with boxing lessons and a couple of MMA classes. Jughead had a locker there, so he always had a change of clothes there if he came there from the club house or after going on a ride with the boys.

Jughead swiped his access card against the control panel and opened up the gym door. It was pitch black inside, and Jughead didn't bother looking for the lights, because he knew the way to the main room of the gym instinctively anyway. Jughead reached the double doors that lead into the gym, pushing one of them open, and then stopping short when he saw that he wasn't actually alone, despite the fact that the parking lot had appeared empty when he had driven in.

And that it was Betty.

She had headphones in, and she was attacking a punching bag, wearing only a sports bra and a pair of leggings. Her hair was up in a tight ponytail—just like how she always used to wear it at school—and Jughead swallowed hard as he watched her. She only had the lights on for the half of the gym that she was using, and he was still completely in the shadows, so even if she did look in his direction, she probably wouldn't be able to see him.

This gym held a lot of memories for them.

She would often come here with him after school, and he would show her some MMA moves and give her boxing tips. She was like a twig when they were back in high school, barely any meat on her, and sometimes he would worry about really hurting her. But Betty was stubborn, and she had always been stronger than she looked.

They had shared a lot of kisses in this gym, and in the changing rooms.

They had done a bit more than kissing in one of the storage rooms between the old machines.

It had also been where she had told him that she was pregnant.

Something had been bothering Betty in the week before she had finally told him. He had known something was wrong, but every time he had tried to bring it up, she had changed the subject or started talking to someone else. Betty had finally told him that they needed to talk somewhere where they could be alone. Betty's mother was always at her house, and Jellybean and her sitter or their father were always at their house. Jughead had suggested the Serpents clubhouse, but when they had gone there on the day, a couple of the older Serpents members had been there.

So in the end, they had ended up at the gym, and had gone into the office after asking Moose's father if it was okay.

Betty had cried.

Jughead hadn't known what he was meant to say or what he was meant to do, and he had just sat on the corner of the office desk, staring at his girlfriend. She was slumped forward, and her hair was out from its usual ponytail and it was falling around her face, but even though she was trying to hold back making any noises, little snuffling noises were escaping and her shoulders were shaking.

They had both only recently turned eighteen.

They were still in high school.

Jughead worked part time at the Serpent garage, Betty babysat and sometimes helped out at the garage as well.

They had no money.

They were still children—they weren't prepared to raise another child.

Jughead tried hard to push back everything that had happened in their last year of high school—it was both the best and worst time of his life so far. He spent a lot of time trying to drink and get high to drown out and burn out the memories after Betty had left. It took him a long time before he really thought everything through, talking it out with Archie and Archie's mother, who was like a mum to him after his own had left.

He had accepted everything that had happened, and once he had come to some sort of peace with that, he moved on, and he tired not to let himself step backwards.

Having Betty back in town had brought a lot of those memories up, though, and he was finding it harder and harder to keep all those thoughts at bay.

Jughead took in a deep breath, scratching his nose and flipping his fingers through his hair, his hand stretching instinctively toward his beanie which hadn't been on top of his head for years. He hadn't even _reached_ for it in years, given it had been quite a ceremonious thing, taking his beanie off permanently and burying it in one of the boxes he had packed up when he had moved out of his childhood home and into the one he was living in now.

Betty had him reverting right back to his love struck eighteen year old self.

Jughead's phone vibrated a couple of times in his back pocket, and he reached in to pull out his phone, his eyes still trained on Betty. It wasn't until his phone vibrated again that he looked down, and saw a couple of messages from Archie on his phone. The ones that had come through first were just asking where he was going, and a bit worried that he had had too much to drink. The most recent text was telling him that he the gun trade was on with the Reapers, and they all needed to meet back at the club house. It was normal not to get a message until the last minute for when a trade was going down.

Jughead looked once more back up at Betty, who was still caught up completely in her music and attacking the punching bag, before turning around and heading back down the dark hallway.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter!

Betty got home after midnight.

She hadn't meant to stay out quite so late, but it had felt good to be working her frustration out at the gym. Generally speaking, it wasn't a twenty-four hour gym, it was only meant to be open during the hours that it was staffed, which were between six in the morning and seven at night. But when she had gone in to join a few weeks ago, Mr Jerry Mason had instantly recognized her, remembering her from going to high school with Moose. He had been more than happy to extend the same courtesy to her that he did to the Serpents and their close family and friends, which meant her swipe card gave her access after hours, so she could come and go as she pleased.

After her trip down memory lane in the attic, she had some tension that she wanted to work out, and she had lost track of how long she had been at the gym until she got a text from Cheryl, telling her that she wasn't going to be back that night, if that wasn't obvious already. That was when she saw the time, and realized that she had been at the gym for nearly two and a half hours, which was ridiculous. She had showered at the gym quickly, not wanting to drive home completely sweaty, but planning on taking a longer, more thorough shower once she got back home.

She was getting used to staying up late, given the hours that she was pulling at the bar with Nancy, so she wasn't tired, even though it was midnight, so she took her time in the shower. Cheryl had a ridiculous amount of beauty products in the shower, and usually Betty didn't stick around in the bathroom long enough to appreciate them. Left alone tonight, though, and not feeling particularly tired, so she took a long time, shampooing and conditioning her hair, and then shaving everywhere from her neck down, trying out a couple of the different lotions that Cheryl had.

Afterwards, she was brushing her teeth while wearing a pair of baggy sleep shorts and an over-sized Paramore concert tee-shirt that she had brought a few years ago when she and Cheryl had gone, when there was a knock at the door downstairs.

It was loud and demanding, and it made Betty's stomach twist uncomfortably. She spat out the mixture of water and toothpaste in her mouth into the sink, and quickly crossed the hall to her bedroom where her phone was plugged in. She checked her phone and saw that it was quarter to one in the morning, and there were no new messages, so it wasn't Cheryl, deciding to come home late and maybe she had forgotten her key, or anyone else letting her know that they were coming home.

Betty frowned, considering staying upstairs in her bedroom and ringing Archie's number to see if he could come over and check on her. In the end, she decided to head downstairs, with her phone gripped tightly in her hand, and approached the front door hesitantly. She could hear shuffling outside, and it sounded like there was more than one person. Then she heard a low moaning noise, as though someone was in pain. Betty swallowed hard and lifted herself up on tiptoes to see out the little window at the top of the door, and then let out a surprised gasp as she fell back flat on her feet and fumbled with the lock on the door.

"Jughead!" Betty cried out, her voice sounding so much louder in the empty, quiet night outside. "Oh my god—what happened?"

"Not to sound too rude, girl, but could you move aside?" FP asked through clenched teeth, holding his son tightly against his side. Betty stumbled backwards, holding the door wide open, and allowing FP and Archie into the room, Jughead held between them.

"This is ridiculous," Jughead grumbled, trying to pull away from his father and best friend, but he instantly winced and his weight shifted to the side.

"Shit, what's going on?" Betty asked as she shut her front door and followed the three men into the lounge. FP fully took Jughead's weight and moved to the closest armchair, lowering Jughead down. "What happened?!" She was worried and scared, and that was when she noticed just how much blood was seeping through the shirt that Jughead was wearing underneath his leather Serpents jacket. It looked as there was a tear in the jacket—like a hole.

A bullet hole.

"Have you been—has he been _shot_?!" Betty snapped. "What are you _doing_ here?! He needs to go to hospital!"

"No!" Archie and FP were simultaneous with their shout and Betty blinked at them before lifting a hand to her hair, running her fingers through the damp strands. Obviously she had been out of town for so long she had forgotten that the Serpents _never_ went to the hospital. There used to be a doctor on their payroll when Betty, Archie and Jughead were kids, but after that, it was mainly Gladys that looked after them. When Betty had turned sixteen, she had even taught Betty a couple of things about cleaning out wounds and stitching them up. She had said it was because she knew Archie and Jughead were going to becoming members of the Serpent, and it would be handy if Betty knew a few tricks.

"Okay," Betty took in a deep breath, flexing her hands at her side and stretching out her fingers purposefully. She used to have a terrible habit of driving her nails into the soft palms of her hands, it was a nervous tic that resulted in her having tiny, crescent shaped scars in her skin. She tried to avoid doing it now, instinctively trying to stretch her fingers out as far from her palms as possible. "Okay, so..." she took in another deep breath. "What do you need from me? What do you want?"

"We need Jughead to lie low," FP stated. "And I need you to stitch him up."

"Stitch him up," Betty mumbled.

"Yes," FP nodded, as though this was the most normal request in the world. "There's going to be police looking at our homes and at the clubhouse, because the shoot out wasn't exactly discreet."

"Shoot out," Betty repeated dully.

"Yes," FP continued, walking over to the window and hooking his finger in the curtain, pulling it back and peeking outside. "Only one other brother was hit, and we've taken him to another safe house. But you're not linked with the Serpents, the Sheriff has made sure to keep you separated from us." Betty wasn't sure what to say to that, remembering what Jughead had told her about making sure the Sheriff warned the other police officer off her. "Betty girl," FP looked back over at her, and seemed to look _at_ her for the first time. "I trust you to keep my boy safe." Betty didn't know how to respond to that, and she just blinked at the older man.

"Betty," Archie came over to her side, reaching out and touching her arm. "Breathe," he chided her gently.

"Yeah," Betty muttered, taking in breaths maybe a little too quickly through her teeth and letting them out through her nose. "Yeah, okay," she turned away from the three men in her lounge and headed quickly into the kitchen. She had begun to feel a little tired after finishing her shower and when she had changed into her sleeping clothes, but she was completely awake now. She reached the kitchen and pulled the bottle of vodka that Cheryl had been keeping in their freezer. It didn't seem as though any of the men in the lounge really knew what she was doing until she unscrewed the lid and lifted the bottle to her lips.

"Whoa, Betty—" Archie took a few steps closer to her, but she just held out the hand that wasn't wrapped around the bottle and waved it idly at him. She took a long drink of the vodka and then winced as the liquid burned down her throat.

"Okay," she murmured, maybe more to herself than to her visitors. She paused, as though contemplating something, and then took another long drink. FP was watching her, his eyebrows pulled together as though he was second guessing his decision to bring his son here. Betty let out a very unattractive grunt as the second mouthful of vodka went down and then screwed the lid back on vodka and slid it back into the freezer. "So, let me just..." she waved her hands around. "Let me just get this straight."

"O-kay," Archie said slowly, his eyes trained carefully on her as she walked back into the lounge.

"You guys were...Doing some illegal shit, I'm guessing. And then something went wrong, and there was shooting—lots of guns, everyone has guns—and Jughead got shot, and someone else did as well. Then some bystanders heard the gunshots, or maybe a cop out on a late night patrol, and you guys all head for the hills and are looking for somewhere to lie low. Most of you will be fine at your houses because your old ladies will cover you, but Jughead has been _shot_ , and any cop with half a brain and an eye patch would know that it's recent, and that he would be tied in with whatever shoot out they're looking into," Betty was rambling a little, but she didn't care. "Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah," Jughead grunted, blinking up at Betty and drawing her full attention for the first time. "You're supposed to offer the alcohol to the guy with a hole in his side if you're going to spend the next six hours monologuing." That kind of made her feel better, actually. Obviously he wasn't injured too badly if his sarcasm was still in tact.

"Right," Betty made a face and quickly went back into the kitchen, coming back with the vodka and handing it to Jughead once she had taken the lid off.

"Elizabeth," FP came over to stand in front of Betty, resting his hands on her shoulders. "I know that Gladys taught you a few things, she said you picked up on it quickly. We can always get Mary to come by when things have blown over, but for now—"

"It's okay," Betty blurted out, not looking as though she had thought it through before speaking given how wide her eyes went. She took in a deep breath and nodded. "It's okay, I've got this. There's a first aid kit upstairs—it's not too bad, right?" She cringed as she peeked around FP's body to look over at Jughead.

"No," FP assured her with a small smile. "He's just being a baby." Betty nodded, and although she still looked nervous, she squared her shoulders and nodded again. "Thank you," FP leaned forward and kissed Betty quickly on the forehead. He walked over to his son and rested his hand on his shoulder—on the side where he wasn't injured—and gave it a squeeze. "Don't cause too much of a problem for our girl here, okay?"

"Hey," Jughead muttered. "I'm the one that's been shot here, remember? You should be telling her to be nice to me." But he managed a tight smile in Betty's direction, as though he was trying to reassure her, and then took a long swig of vodka.

"Thanks, Betty," Archie said, coming over to give Betty a quick hug. "We better get out of here, Sheriff Keller can only keep the neighboring cops at bay for so long."

"Yeah, you get home to Vee," Betty said as she hugged him back before moving to stand beside Jughead, wincing as his leather jacket fell open and she caught sight of the blood coming through his shirt. "I've got this." FP looked hesitant in following Archie toward the door and Betty's expression softened as she saw the worry on his face. "I've got this...I've got him."


	17. Chapter 17

"So..." Betty took in a deep breath as she walked back over to Jughead after she locked the front door. "We should probably get you upstairs, I think the bathroom is the best place to do... _This_." Her stomach clenched as she realized that this was actually happening. "Do you, uh, do you need my help?" Betty awkwardly reached out to take his arm, not knowing what she needed to do.

"I'm fine," Jughead said as he stood up, but she immediately recognized that he was unsteady on his feet and moved to his side. He was heavy, but it was clear that he was trying not to put all his weight on her.

"Come on," Betty murmured as she began moving Jughead toward the stairs. Jughead winced every step that they were taking, but he clenched his teeth together and stopped himself from making any noise. They got up to the second floor, and Betty ushered him into the bathroom. "Uh," she bit down on her lower lip and then maneuvered him around so that he was slumped against the shower door. "Just a sec." Betty made sure that he was steady on his feet before she ducked out of the room and into one of the spare rooms. She grabbed one of the wooden chairs and brought it back to the bathroom and put it down in the middle. "Sit," she told him, not bothering to wait before she squatted down in front of the drawers underneath the sink.

"Fuck," Jughead muttered under his breath as he sat down. Betty pulled out the first aid kit and put it on top of the vanity unit.

"Okay," Betty gritted her teeth together as she looked back at Jughead. "Was your dad right?"

"About what?" Jughead asked.

"That it's not that bad?" Betty asked, giving him a hopeful look.

"It's fine," Jughead nodded, giving her another tight smile. "It's just a graze."

"Then how come you're walking funny?" Betty asked. "I've seen you take a full on beating more than once and only walk with a bit of a limp."

"That's not because of the bullet," Jughead winced as Betty helped him take off his leather jacket, one arm at a time, inching it slowly down his wounded side. "That was because I jumped out of the way and landed awkwardly." Betty nodded.

"Did your hurt your leg or ankle? Do you want me to get some ice?" Betty asked.

"First, I think we should get this sorted," Jughead grimaced a smile at her and waved a hand at his side.

"Right," Betty pursed her lips together. "Uh, it's gonna be awkward getting your shirt off..." Jughead turned and she got a full look at his torso without his jacket on, and she could see the dark grey shirt he was wearing was completely stained with blood through the shirt. "Oh, shit, that's a lot of blood," Betty blinked rapidly and Jughead reached out a hand to her.

"It's okay," he told her. "It's fine. There's a lot of blood, but the bullet just grazed, it's not in there. All you need to do is clean it and stitch it."

"Oh, great. I'm _so_ _glad_ that's all I need to do," Betty muttered sarcastically. Jughead grimaced again as she reached from the hem of his shirt, wondering exactly how she was going to manage to get it off him without jostling him too much.

"Just rip it off," Jughead told her after a few moments of Betty trying to work it all out in her head.

"What?" Betty lifted her eyebrows.

"Just rip it off," he repeated. "It's fine, I've got plenty more shirts." He nodded over to the leather Serpents jacket that was lying on the ground in the corner of the bathroom. "That's going to be a bit harder to replace." Betty knew how much that jacket meant to him, and if she wasn't so annoyed at him for getting himself hurt and putting her into this position, then she might actually feel sorry for him.

"Alright," Betty let out a sigh and curled her fingers inwards. The fabric held out for a second, and then gave under her pulling, tearing from the middle. The blonde tried not to move Jughead too much as she ripped the material off him, and then finally, he was left shirtless in front of her. "Shit," Betty felt panic beginning to rise in her stomach as she stared at his bloody torso. She'd never had a panic attack before, and she had been in some _bad_ situations before and never felt like she couldn't breathe like this.

"Betty," Jughead reached out for. "It's not as bad as it looks," he reminded her.

"I don't know—why don't you guys have some doctor on your payroll?!" Betty cried out, her fingers instinctively beginning to curl inwards. "You're fucking paying off everyone else in this town—why not a doctor?!" Jughead looked annoyed at her comment, but he didn't say anything. His eyes did, however, drop down to her hands, and she reminded herself to unfurl her fingers, trying to ignore the slight sting on her palms.

"I'm here because we trust you," he finally told her. "And I know that you've got this. Gladys used to fix us up all the time, and she taught you and Veronica some shit." Betty had never actually heard Jughead refer to his mother as 'Gladys'. She had left just before their final year in high school, and he had never really talked about her at all. Betty couldn't blame him, given she had ditched her whole family—husband and children—for a seedy car dealer. By the sounds of it, he was still angry, given he wasn't even calling her 'mum' anymore. "Remember that time she made you practice on my eyebrow?" Betty did, and she let out a nervous laugh at the memory, her eyes going to his right eyebrow.

He had got in a fight with Chuck one afternoon at school, because Chuck was being Chuck, and it was one of those times that him and Nancy were in their 'off' phase, and he had been hitting on Betty relentlessly.

Jughead still had a tiny scar above his eyebrow from where Betty had fixed up the gash.

"Shit," Betty scratched her head and nodded. "Okay," she let out a harsh breath. "Let's do this." Betty turned around and reached for the first towel available. It looked like one of Cheryls— bright yellow and ridiculously fluffy—but it was just going to have to do. She laid it out on the ground underneath the chair where Jughead was sitting, and then opened up the first aid kit. She ripped open one of the packets with an antiseptic wipe, and then knelt down on the ground beside Jughead's wounded side. She winced as she saw the blood still coming from the wound, but there was no way to tell how bad it was without it being clean. "This is going to sting a bit," she warned Jughead, although it was probably just as much warning to herself for what she was about to do.

"Just do it," Jughead said through clenched teeth.

"Right," Betty swallowed hard as she began to wipe at the wound. She started with the blood surrounding the wound, that was starting to dry and crust, before making her way closer to the actual wound itself. She threw away the first antiseptic wipe after it became completely red and unusable, tossing it to the ground before ripping open another packet and starting with a clean one. Jughead kept his teeth gritted together to stop himself from making too much noise, but every now and then, he would let out a grunt or a moan, but was silent other than that.

FP and Jughead had been right, it wasn't as bad as it looked. The bullet had torn through the fleshy part of his side, just below the rips, but it was a clean hit, and it wasn't even going to need full stitches, just some butterfly ones.

Once Betty had finished cleaning it, and then gently dried it down, she couldn't help but let her eyes wander. It absolutely was not the time to let her attraction toward Jughead run wild, but his skin was warm under her fingers, and his torso was right there—it was kind of hard to ignore. There was a definition to his abdominal muscles and biceps that hadn't been there when they were teenagers and that she hadn't had time to appreciate in their hurried tryst at the Drive In. And he had a lot more tattoo's that he had had when there were teenagers—he had had three when they were in high school, two which she could see now, and one that she was a bit scared to look for—but he had countless ones now.

He was unfairly beautiful.

Jughead's breathing had evened out a bit, and she was guessing that now that she had managed to wipe away the dried blood, and washed out the wound, he wasn't in quite as much pain. He was holding his injured leg very carefully, not putting much weight on it at all, and Betty was going to revisit the idea of getting some ice and maybe looking for a sports strap in the cupboard.

Betty got back to her feet and walked over to the sink. She washed off her hands, taking her time to make sure she got all the blood off before starting on the butterfly stitches. She dried her hands off and turned back around, and that was when she saw the tattoo.

Her tattoo.

The one that he had gotten at the same time that she had got her tattoo for Jughead.

She had been distracted when she had ripped his shirt off by the blood and the pain in his face, but now she could blatantly see her name, small but clear, in loopy writing, saying _Betty_. At the time, it had been the only ink that he had had on his chest. It had been right over his heart, and Betty had a tendency to rest her hand right over, feeling his heart thump right after they had finished having sex.

Jughead noticed her hesitation and looked up at her, pressing his red lips together as he waited for her to move again. Her cheeks went red and she knelt down next to him to press the butterfly stitches over the wound. It didn't take very long, and then she made sure to clean up the rest of his torso before standing up again.

"Alright," Betty scratched the side of her face. "I'll get some ice for your ankle, okay?"

"Uh," Jughead twisted his body side to side, carefully testing out his limits before lifting himself to his feet. He reached out and balanced himself by resting his hand on the vanity unit, shifting the weight completely off his ankle. "It'll be okay. I don't even think it's a sprain, just twisted. I kind of just want to go to sleep." Betty met his eyes, and she realized for the first time just how bloodshot they were.

He looked tired, like he hadn't been sleeping properly.

"Maybe get me some ice and I'll just crash out on the couch?" Jughead suggested. It would be a smart idea for her to say 'yes', but the couch wouldn't be long enough for him to stretch out properly, and it was nowhere near as comfortable as a bed.

"No," Betty shook her head. "I've got a big bed." Jughead's eyebrows raised. "We don't have the spare bed made up right now, and I can't be fucked doing that, which leaves Cheryl's bed, and you'll definitely need to go to a hospital if she finds out that you slept in there." Jughead cracked a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

It made her feel better that he seemed as uncertain as she did.

"Come on," Betty swallowed hard as she stepped closer to him. "I'll help you to the bedroom, then I'll go grab some ice." Jughead put his arm around her shoulder, and she could tell that once again he was trying not to lean on her too much. They left the bathroom, Jughead grunting once as he twisted in a way that pulled at his side. Betty helped him into her bedroom, and she pushed back any memories that started rising of her and Jughead in this very same room about seven years ago. She helped him to the bed and he sat down, and she looked down at his jeans and shoes. "Um...Do you need help with everything?"

"It's fine," Jughead shook his head.

"Okay," Betty nodded, hesitating for one last moment before quickly leaving the room and heading downstairs. She glanced up at the clock and saw that it was after one, and after all the excitement that had happened in the past hour, it wasn't surprising that she felt completely exhausted.

The blonde took an ice pack out of the freezer, double checked that the front door was locked one last time before heading back upstairs. Jughead had managed to toe off his shoes and socks, but he still had his jeans on. He looked as though he was falling asleep in his seated position, so Betty just focused on getting him comfortable.

"Okay, you alright with your jeans still on?" She asked, and Jughead nodded sleepily, turning his body around and sliding his good leg under the blankets. Betty carefully lifted up his other leg, and arranged the blankets so that his leg was covered but his foot was uncovered, and she pressed the ice pack down on it. "I don't really have anything to keep it there," Betty began, twisting her mouth as she looked around her room. "I could find a scarf or—" she looked back at Jughead and her face completely relaxed as she saw that he was fast asleep.

Betty took in a deep breath and went to the bathroom, not bothering to clean everything up—she would get to it tomorrow—and turned the light off. Then she came back into the bedroom and turned the light off there as well, walking around to the other side of the bed. She carefully got into her bed, making sure to keep to her side. She thought that maybe it would take her a while to go to sleep, but the gentle breathing from Jughead beside her had her falling asleep quickly.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, pretty peeps!

When Betty woke up the next morning, it was after Jughead. That wasn't particularly surprising, because even when they were teenagers, Jughead was always up early. He only ever really slept in when he was ridiculously hungover. The bed was empty beside her, and it was cold as well, so he had obviously been up for a while. Despite the fact she had been nervous about how the 'morning after' was going to go when she had fallen asleep last night, that didn't mean she didn't feel a twinge of disappointment at finding herself alone when she woke up.

Betty got out of bed and changed into a pair of sweatpants, quickly putting on a bra and pulling a singlet over her head before looking over her bed. She must have done a reasonably good job at covering Jughead's wound up, because there weren't any stains or smears of blood on the sheets or blanket. There was a small wet patch near the bottom of the bed, that would have been from the ice pack after it had melted, but that was gone as well, so Betty was guessing that Jughead had taken that when he had left.

The blonde wasn't sure if Jughead would still be there, so she grabbed her phone off the charger and headed downstairs. She checked her phone for messages, and wasn't very surprised when she saw it was after ten in the morning. It wasn't that last night had been particularly late for her, but it had been a lot more emotionally charged than she had dealt with in a while.

There was every chance that Jughead had already left, but Betty was willing to bet that he would still be there.

She got downstairs and paused at the bottom, glancing to her right toward the kitchen, and everything was completely silent for a moment. Then she heard the fridge door open, and she knew that it wouldn't be Cheryl because she couldn't smell Cheryl's perfume in the house. Plus, Cheryl barely ever got out of bed before midday, and Betty doubted that she would be back from Josie's place this early.

"Morning," Jughead grunted as she came into the kitchen and gave him a stiff smile.

"Morning," Betty replied with an incline of her head. It smelt as though Jughead had recently brewed a strong batch of coffee, which is exactly what she needed right now to clear her head and think straight. "Can you pour me one of those as well?" She waved at the coffee pot, and Jughead reached into the cupboard behind him to get a mug and pour one for her. He was about to put a teaspoon of sugar in the cup, but she shook her head. "No, like that is fine," she told him, holding out her hand.

"You take it straight now?" Jughead asked with a raise of an eyebrow as he passed it over.

"Not usually," Betty answered. "Today seems like an exception, I need something strong to get me started." Jughead nodded without commenting. Betty moved to take a seat at the table, slinging her legs up along the chair next to her as she centered herself. Jughead came to sit down at the table with her, sitting opposite her. She noticed a slight limp in his walk, but nowhere near as noticeable as it had been last night. "How's your ankle?" She asked.

"It's fine," Jughead nodded. "A little swollen."

"And your side?" Betty continued.

"That's gonna take a bit longer to heal," Jughead's lips quirked in a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "But you did a good job, thank you."

"Right," Betty nodded, taking in a deep breath before setting down her coffee mug and turning her torso to face Jughead. "What the fuck happened last night?" Jughead stared at her, and she could see the conflict on his face, unsure if he should be straight with her or not. Betty just stayed quiet, waiting it out, before Jughead nodded his head and leaned forward with a wince, clasping his hands together on the table in front of him.

"That girl who died—just the other week, the sixteen year old," Jughead began and Betty nodded. The teenager, in the paper it had said her name was Dixie, had been the one that Betty had heard about while at Polly's baby shower. "She was the little sister of one of the Reapers, and the niece of another one." Betty's widened at the admission but she didn't say anything. "And you know the Reapers are, they're another biker—"

"I know," Betty nodded.

"Right," Jughead took in a breath. "Well, we were involved in a gun trade with them. So, we did the money drop separate from the gun trade—" Betty nodded again, remembering back to how their trades would work; never with the money _and_ the merchandise on hand at the same time, and that went for most biker clubs. "—I was meant to go with Archie the other week but I," he paused and his eyes flickered to the side, and Betty wondered what he was trying to hide. "—I wasn't able to go," he finished lamely and the blonde knew that there was more to it than that, but she wasn't going to push it, it wasn't any of her business. "So he had one of the other brothers to go with him. Anyway, everything was fine, Archie said that there was nothing off about the money exchange when they were there. But then when we met them again last night..." Jughead shook his head and pursed his lips, reaching down to touch the wound at his side. "Something was wrong right from the minute we got there."

"And you stayed instead of hauling ass?" Betty asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, Fred wanted to get out there as soon as we realized that something was wrong," Jughead stated, and that sounded about right. Fred was the cautious one, he was definitely the one that helped FP from making too many reckless decisions. "But dad said that we had already made the payment, and we were there to do business." Betty licked her lips and flexed her fingers around her coffee mug. "They were all spread out, as if they were trying to circle around us—get us trapped—and that's when their Prez started talking. He said that he knew we were behind the fucked up drugs. He said that they had kept out of the whole mess even though they had disagreed with what was happening. But then when Dixie died—" Jughead was looking distressed, and Betty wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but he clenched them tightly together glared down at them. "Someone told him that he saw a man selling drugs to Dixie and her friend before she died, and then that same source saw him again, this time wearing a Serpents jacket."

" _What_?!" Betty snapped, her hands jerking and almost sloshing coffee over the edge of the mug.

"Yup," Jughead muttered. "We don't know who they were talking about or who their source was because there really wasn't much talking that happened from that point forward, just a whole lot of shouting and gunfire." Betty thought back to all the unsolved deaths in the past few months—that had started before she had come to town—and she couldn't help but feel a question in her mind.

She knew that a lot of people suspected the Serpents, and if she didn't have connections to them, she would suspect them as well.

But so far, she had believed that they were innocent.

If there was proof that they were involved, though...

" _Was_ it the Serpents?" Betty asked quietly. Jughead's head jerked up and he glared at Betty.

"No! We don't do that! We don't sell the hard shit to kids, and our drugs are _clean_!" He sounded indignant, and a bit pissed, but she could also see the hurt in his eyes, and she immediately regretted asking the question. "Betty, these people that are dying—some of them are JB's age. One of them was JB's _best friend_. We wouldn't _do_ that." Betty nodded, and she hoped that he saw on her face that she believed him.

"I think that I should probably check the wound again," Betty said after a few moments of silence. "And then a shower would probably be a good idea, wash away anything that I missed last night." Jughead was quiet for a few beats before he gave her a strained smile.

"You just trying to get me undressed? Because there's an easier way to do it," he smirked, going for a teasing tone but falling just short. The tension was still palpable between them, and Betty hated that, but even if there wasn't tension over the deaths and the drugs, there would have been tension over their past and their last conversation with each other. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea," he agreed as he stood up. He hadn't put his Serpents jacket back on, he was wearing a dark green singlet that Betty didn't recognize. She wondered where he had found it, because it definitely wasn't his ruined shirt from last night. It was probably one of Chic's that had been packed away.

"Okay, let's have a look," Betty got up from her seat and came around to Jughead's side of the table. Jughead stood up and pulled his shirt up over his head. He looked even better in the natural light that was coming through the windows rather than the harsh, artificial light of the bathroom, and Betty had to press her lips together purposefully to make sure she didn't let out a hum of appreciation.

She hadn't done a terrible job in cleaning him up last night, but the bruising had flared up, and there was nasty blue and green discoloration spreading down Jughead's side. She winced as she gently skimmed her fingers over it.

"You should go up and have a shower," Betty nodded, quickly diverting her eyes away from Jughead an moving into the kitchen. "I can have a look and see if I can find some more of Chic's clothes for you to change into—"

"I already grabbed some," Jughead said to her, indicating the singlet he had been wearing. "I hope it's okay. I remember his room, and I figured you guys wouldn't have gotten rid of the clothes that he had in there."

"Yeah, it's fine," Betty nodded again and opened up the fridge door to take out a couple of eggs. "I'll make us some breakfast—" she was interrupted again as Jughead crossed the kitchen to where she was standing and rested his hand on her shoulder, turning her body around to face him. Betty blinked as her eyes involuntarily dipped downwards to his torso. She took in her tattoo again, and then the serpent that curled around his arm, from his elbow then up his bicep, finishing across his shoulder blade. Her eyes moved across his taunt stomach muscles, where there was also a tattoo of Jellybean's real name, Forsythia, and then she quickly pulled them up to meet his gaze, rather than investigating the other tattoo's that were spread over his torso.

"Thank you, for what you did," Jughead told her earnestly. "I know that you didn't ask to get dragged back into our shit, and you made it pretty clear where I stood with you as well. So...I appreciate that you still took me in." Betty swallowed hard and forced a smile.

"Of course, Juggie," she told him, her voice a bit tight. "Of course."


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Pride Month, ya'll!

When Jughead came back down from the bathroom, he was completely dressed in Chic's clothes. The shirt was tight, because Jughead was more built than her brother, but the sweatpants that he was wearing were a big baggy, because Chic was taller. He gave her an awkward smile before sitting down at the kitchen table as she began to bring over two plates piled high with waffles. She brought over maple syrup and the freshly cut fruit that she was going to need to replace or Cheryl would have her head. They were quiet as they began eating, furtively shooting each other glances every now and then.

"Your waffles were always amazing," Jughead murmured as he cut off a corner of a waffle and slid it through some of the maple syrup around the edge of his plate.

"Thanks," Betty flashed him a smile before looking back down at her plate. Her mum had always drummed it into her and Polly that it was a woman's job to cook and provide for her family, so she had taught them how to cook since a young age. Polly liked cooking, but Betty preferred to be outside, and even though she was a reasonably good cook, she didn't like doing it. But she had always liked cooking breakfast foods, and waffles were her specialty.

"Betty?" Jughead finished first, because he practically inhaled his food.

"Mm?" Betty asked through a mouthful of strawberries and waffles.

"Why did you tell me to leave you alone?" He asked bluntly, and his eyes were boring into hers. She almost choked on her mouthful and she coughed, covering her mouth quickly and looking away from the Serpent member as she quickly chewed and swallowed the rest of her food.

"Jughead, I—"

"Why did you tell me that it was over? That this was us just falling back in to familiar, old patterns?" Jughead continued. His voice was firm and steady, and Betty was completely lost for words to say as she stared across the table at her ex-boyfriend. Jughead reached across the table and took her hand. Betty's knee-jerk reaction was to pull back her hand, but his long fingers circled around her slim wrist and held it in place. She pulled once more, but it was only half-hearted, not really wanting to pull away from the warm pressure of his hand. She knew that her cheeks were flooding with colour, and there was a prickling behind her eyes at the intensity that Jughead was staring at her with. "I _know_ you don't believe. I _know_ it."

"Jughead—" she didn't even know what she was going to say.

Turning him down once...Tearing him down _once_ had been hard enough, she wasn't sure that she could do it again.

One could argue that it had been twice, given she had seen the way his heart had broken when she had told him that she was leaving Riverdale, and as she drove away, but this had been more intentional, more directly aimed _at him_.

"If you really thought that there was nothing between us, you would never have let me stay here last night—in your bed!" Jughead continued, and his volume was getting louder, and Betty was torn between wanting to shove food into her mouth so that she could focus on something else, and knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to eat anything else for a few more hours, given the knots her stomach was in.

"Just because I said that there's nothing between us, doesn't mean that I don't care about you anymore," Betty began, choosing her words carefully. "You're still my...Friend," _that_ word felt even weirder coming out of her mouth. She hadn't referred to Jughead as her 'friend' since she was about fourteen. From that point on, he had hovered over crush, and then into lover and boyfriend.

"I'm more than that," Jughead stated, sounding confident in his utterance. He let go of her wrist, pushed his plate away from the edge of the table and crossed his arms over his chest. "I can see it in the way that you're looking at me right now...In the way you pretty much spat that word out like it tasted bad." Betty had nothing to say, she was just staring across the table at Jughead with her lips parted, and her hand twitched on the table, her fingers itching to turn in on her palm and press down, create bloody crescents. "Don't..." Jughead murmured, and he actually sounded a little pained, and he reached out his hand. "Don't do that."

His fingers shifted, over the backs of her fingers, caressing the delicate skin and then raising over her knuckles, tripping over each one, and then sliding underneath her hand and rubbing two fingers over her palm, and the scars that were there.

"I never, _ever_ stopped loving you," Jughead told her, even though he knew that she already knew that.

"Juggie..." her breathing felt funny and she looked down at the table top. "After everything that happened between us..." she really wasn't prepared for this conversation. Jughead turned her hand over, so that it was palm upward, and his fingers stroked over the skin of her hand, over the small scars. Her breathing still felt weird, short and almost suppressed in her lungs. She knew that she should pull her hand away from Jughead's—she would definitely be able to breathe a whole lot easier when he wasn't touching her anymore—but it just felt good.

Comforting.

 _Familiar_.

"We're really different people now, Jughead," Betty continued, although the way she was talking sounded different from how it had when they were they were talking in the driveway behind the bar. She didn't sound as sure of herself. "My life isn't here in Riverdale anymore, it's in LA. I have a job there. I mean, I resigned when I left, just because I didn't know how long I would be down here for, but it's still there when I go back. There are more opportunities for what I want to do—I'm a qualified mechanical engineer and that's what I love to do, there's no way I'm going to stay, tending bar for the rest of my life. I—I have friends there, and—and it's just where I _live now_. It's where my life is."

"I don't agree with that," Jughead stated, and there was something in the way that he squared his chin that reminded Betty of when they were eight and they were arguing about who the better Power Ranger was. "I think your life is here. Your _family_ is here."

"I can have a life separate from my family—"

"I don't know if I believe that, because the instant your family needed you—the instant _Polly_ needed you—you were back here," Jughead pointed out. Betty didn't have a response for that, and Jughead jumped on that, leaning further across the table. "It's where Polly is, where your niece or nephew is going to be. It's where Veronica is, and Archie is, and where their kid is going to be as well, and we know that you're going to be their favourite aunty." That caused a small smile on Clary's face as she thought about her friends child. "Kevin's here, Josie's here—you never know if Cheryl's going to stay, now that she's got that thing _finally_ going with Josie that she wanted so much back in high school." _That_ had definitely been something that Betty had been thinking about. "And... _I'm_ here."

"Juggie..." Betty began again, and Jughead's hand tightened around hers.

"I know that might not be the selling point," he conceded with a deep breath, and that made Betty feel bad. "But I can help you as well."

"What do you mean by that?" Betty arched an eyebrow.

"With a job," Jughead continued. "You know that—"

"No, Juggie," Betty pulled her hand away from Jughead and stood up. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Come on," Jughead stood up as well, following her as she walked into the kitchen with her half empty plate. "I'm trying to _help_."

"Yeah, I—I know," Betty sighed, putting down her plate and resting her hands against the bench. She shouldn't be listening to this from Jughead right now. She had made her position clear, as much as it had hurt her to do it. She had it set out in her head that she was going to be going back to Los Angeles once the baby was born, even if her heart wasn't totally behind that decision.

And even after everything she had said to Jughead...

Even after she had tore him down again, and thrown his feelings back in his face...

Here he was, trying to help her.

Of _course_ he was trying to help her.

Because he was Jughead, and she was Betty, and there was something between them that tied them together. There always had been and there always would be.

And Jughead was right.

Being back in Riverdale...She wasn't quite ready to admit to herself that she wasn't going to leave again, but she knew that it was there, hovering over her head. And _if_ she was going to stay, she was going to need a job. And by job, she didn't mean working as a bartender, because she busted her ass off in university and put up with misogynistic crap at the first couple of garages that she worked before finally settled down at her last place, and she didn't do all of that to just be a bartender. Besides, on the money she was getting, while she knew Nancy wasn't ripping her off, it really wasn't going to repay her student loans in any sort of hurry.

"It's just a job," Betty began slowly, and was about to continue when Jughead let out a satisfied sigh. "It's _just_ a job," she repeated, more sharply this time, giving Jughead a narrow-eyed look. "And..." she took in a deep breath, flicking her tongue out to wet her lips. "And while I appreciate this, it doesn't..." she snapped her teeth together with a sigh. "It doesn't mean that anything is happening between us." It hurt to say it, but she didn't want to go into the next situation under any false expectations.

"I know," Jughead nodded, and his eyes weren't quite as bright as they had been a few moments ago, but he was still smiling.

"Okay..." Betty nodded slowly, she turned back around to start washing the dishes.

"I thought that you were going to make that a hell of a lot harder," Jughead commented as he picked up a tea-towel from the hook beside the oven and waited for her to put the dishes on the dish rack. Betty glanced over at him, not too sure what her response to that should be. "I'm glad you're not," he nudged her and gave her another smile.

" _I'm_ the one that's supposed to be happy here," Betty couldn't help but let her lips curve up in a smile. "I'm the one who just got a job."

"Yeah, well," Jughead shrugged as he took a plate from her hands, and there was something in the way that his hair was flopping down over his forehead, and he was smiling softly, and the golden light coming through the window...He looked soft, and young, and exactly like he had when Betty had fallen in love with him years ago. "You're letting me help you, that's all I'm glad about."

He was still the same Jughead, giving everything to the people he cared about.

Betty swallowed hard and ducked her head, turning her attention back to the sink, trying to keep down the welling in her stomach. They moved in silence for a few minutes, before there was a sharp knock at the door, and the young adults frowned at each other.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, life is crazy.

Betty checked the window beside the door before she opened it, and was surprised to see Jellybean standing there. The teenager did not look happy, her hair shoved underneath a ragged beanie that actually looked a hell of a lot like the one that Jughead used to wear when they were in high school. But when Jughead appeared behind Betty, a relieved smile spread across her face and she stepped around Betty to throw her arms around her brother and hold him tight against her. Betty saw Jughead wince, probably from Jellybean jolting his side which was going to be healing for the next week or so, but he didn't try to pull away or loosen her grip.

"It's okay," Jughead reassured his little sister. "It's okay."

"Yeah, well," Jellybean pulled back and punched him lightly in the arm. "Don't be an asshole and get shot next time!"

"Wasn't my fault," Jughead snapped back with a roll of his eyes. "Kind of just...Happened." Jellybean scowled at him, but she circled an arm around her waist and nudged herself under Jughead's arm. "So, are you here to give me a ride home?"

"I am," Jellybean nodded. "Your bike is getting touched up, along with dad's and Moose's." Betty knew that they were making sure to cover up any sign of the gun fight last night, so that if the police came around, there wouldn't be any sign of a scuffle. That was why Jughead had ended up here last night, instead of at a hospital.

"Alright," Jughead gave her a soft kiss on her temple and then nudged her with his hip. "I'll meet you out there in a minute, okay?" Jellybean scowled again as she looked between Jughead and Betty, and it didn't look as though she wanted to leave them alone, but Jughead gave her another nudge and so she left. Just as she was about to walk past Betty, she paused and took in a breath.

"Thanks for looking after my brother," she said grudgingly before heading out the door and toward the Mazda that was parked in the driveway, behind Betty's car.

"No problem, JB!" Betty called after the younger girl and then raised her eyebrows at Jughead. "She doesn't seem like my biggest fan." Jughead didn't seem at all surprised by the interaction, maybe a little sad, and he shrugged a shoulder.

"She's just protective," he answered. "Uh, anyway, I better get my clothes—"

"No, it's fine," Betty quickly said. "I'll get them cleaned today, and I'll get them ready for you. Although...I don't know how your shirt is going to fare."

"Yeah," Jughead made a face. "That's fine. And, uh, I'll wash these and bring them in to the garage," he waved down at the clothes that he was wearing. Betty's expression became slightly troubled at the mention of the garage and Jughead gave her a pointed look. "Hey, you  _already_  accepted the job.  _No take backs_." Betty snorted and rolled her eyes as she looked out toward where Jellybean had turned on the car, her expression lighter. "I'll get a contract and everything sorted for you, I promise it will all be above board."

"Right," Betty gave him a tight smile, her heart beating a bit faster in her chest. She still wasn't totally sure that this was the best idea, but she tried to tell herself that she was only accepting because it was a better job than the bar. It was bullshit, but she had to at least  _try_  and tell herself that this was a good idea. "Well...Thanks," there wasn't much else for her to say.

"And thanks for this," Jughead nodded his head down at his torso and Betty forced another small smile. There was an awkward moment, as though they were trying to figure out how they should be saying goodbye, if they should hug or just part ways, and finally Jughead took a step backward, out the door. "Bye," he told her quietly before turning and walking quickly toward Jellybeans car. Betty watched them go from the doorway, not walking back inside until it had disappeared around the corner at the end of the road. The blonde took in a deep breath as she stepped back into the house and shut the door.

The tears took her by surprise, welling in her eyes and dripping down her face. She tried to take in a few deep breaths to calm herself down, but the tears kept on coming. Betty sat down on the couch, tucking her legs up underneath her and picking up one of the cushions and hugging it to her chest, burying her face and letting the tears fall.

* * *

Betty was eighteen when she found out that she was pregnant.

She didn't even realize at first that she had missed her period. She was so caught up in the fun that she was having with Jughead, sneaking out of her house with a ladder that Jughead would keep hidden at Archie's and bring out after her parents had gone to bed, and going out drinking with him, Archie, Veronica and Cheryl. The only concerns that Betty had were college applications, end of year exams and that her mum might find out about the tattoo that she had gotten in a dodgy parlour that didn't care she was under age because he did all the ink work for the Serpents.

It wasn't until she missed her second period in a row, and Veronica had been complaining about cramps while they were in class, that Betty realized that it had been a while since she had had one. When she had gone back through the calender on her phone, her eyes had widened, and she had lied to Veronica and said that she forgot she had agreed to have lunch with her mum, and had quickly left. She had driven to the other side of Riverdale, to a tiny dairy that she had never been to before, and had brought an overpriced pregnancy test, and then had driven home.

Both of her parents were at work, Chic had long moved out of home and Polly was away at University, so she had the house to herself. Which was good, because if anyone was home, they might have been asking why she was forcing herself to drink two large glasses of water. It took twenty minutes of sitting on the toilet with the taps turned on, trying to make herself pee, before she managed to it.

It only took another minute before the two lines appeared in the little window, and Betty passed out on the bathroom floor.

She kept it from Jughead—from  _everyone_ —for a week. Her friends knew that something was wrong, and Archie had even messaged Veronica and asked her to call Betty and find out what was wrong, but Betty had avoided Veronica's texts and calls. She knew that Jughead deserved to be the first one to hear, and she wasn't ready to tell him yet—wasn't ready to tell anyone.

When she had finally told him, in the office of the gym, she had started crying, sitting in the old office chair, and Jughead had been so shell shocked he hadn't been able to utter a word as he slumped against the door and crossed his arms tightly over her chest. Neither of them knew how long had passed before Jughead finally spoke.

He told her that it was okay. That it wasn't...It wasn't what either of them expected or were ready for, but he loved her. It was the first time he had ever actually said the words, and even though she had been wanting him to say them for a while, they just didn't resonate. They felt hollow. He carried on, telling her that they were smart, that they could do this if they pulled together, they would be able to get through it. She still wasn't sure what he was thinking—or even what she was thinking—whether he was thinking about not having the baby or having the baby...He was trying to make her feel better, but when he murmured that he hadn't imagined them having a kid for a few more years, Betty snapped.

She had gone off at him.

She had started ranting and screaming, saying that there was no way that they could even consider keeping this child. They were too young, they had too much in front of them, and if they kept this child, then they were going to be stuck—stuck in Riverdale and in the lives that they had right at the moment.

Jughead had looked confused, he looked as though he didn't understand, and he had asked her what was so bad about being stuck here. He had said that it was their home, it was where their friends and family lived—the people that they loved. It was where he was. What was so bad?

Betty had just kept on ranting, saying they were too young, that maybe coming back here would be okay when they were older, but they should be able to get out there and explore, and have fun.  _They couldn't have this baby_.

She didn't realize that her decision had been made until that moment.

Jughead had been frozen, he didn't know what to say, and Betty had run from the room, ignoring his shouts as he tried to follow after her.

It was Archie's mum who Betty had told next. Mary was good at keeping secrets and she was already like a second mother to Betty. She listened as Betty stuttered through her story, and held her when she cried. Archie had come home from football practice as Betty finished, and he had sat down on the couch beside them, and wrapped his arms around both woman.

A few weeks went by, and Jughead and Betty didn't talk. It wasn't that Jughead didn't try, but Betty wouldn't talk to him. She said that their exams were coming up, and that was what she needed to focus on. Jughead said that they had bigger things than exams, but Betty hadn't known what to say, and her eyes had widened and her face had drained of colour and she pressed her fingernails into her palms so viciously that blood had started to drip down her palms, through her clenched fingers. Jughead had gripped her hands, loosening her fingers and kissing each of the marks on her palm. Betty had let out a sigh through her teeth and her face had softened for a split second.

Jughead had pressed a kiss to her lips and asked her if they could meet up tomorrow after her study group, so that they could talk.

Betty had said yes.

Two hours before school had finished, her father had had a heart attack while driving and their talk had taken the back seat. Betty spent every waking hour splitting her time between school, study group, getting a few hours of sleep at home and the hospital. He had died on the day of her final exam and Betty had miscarried a week later.

She had left town shortly after that.


	21. Chapter 21

"You  _what_?" Archie's eyes widened as he stopped working on the engine of the car in front of him, turning around to look at Jughead. Jughead didn't look quite as certain as he had when he had first walked up to Archie, but he pursed his lips together and repeated what he had just said.

"I offered Betty a job." Archie stared at his friend for a moment longer, taking in a deep breath and looking away from Jughead, toward where Dilton was working on a motorbike. "What's the problem? I thought that you'd be happy...We're like...Being friends and shit."

"Yeah, right," Archie sighed and lifted his hand to his head, running his fingers through his hair. "It's just...I mean, I'm glad you guys are on good terms, but is working together every single day really going to be the best thing here? I mean, you guys seemed to get yourself into a good place, and then something happened and suddenly you weren't good again, and now you're offering her a job?" He sighed again. "I know she's good at what she does, and I even mentioned that she should get a job here at the baby shower—"

"—So  _what's_  the problem then?" Jughead interrupted.

"Well, maybe when I said it to her, I wasn't thinking properly at the time. I don't know if throwing you guys together is what's best," Archie tilted his head to the side, his shaggy ginger hair flopping over his forehead and shrugged. "And also, with all the shit that's going out at the moment, with what happened in the weekend—" he jerked his hand toward Jughead's side, where he had been shot, and then over his shoulder, toward Dilton, who was replacing one of the wheels on the bike, given it had been shot out. "Do you really think it's the best thing to involve her in our business?" Jughead seemed to falter there and his eyebrows furrowed together. "I love Betty, but it's not as though she signed up to be a part of all this trouble like V did."

"Yeah, I didn't even think—" Jughead was cut off by a low whistle coming from Reggie who had just come out of the bathroom. Jughead and Archie turned in the direction that he was looking and Jughead's eyes widened. It was Betty, wearing a pair of overalls and a dark grey singlet, the arms of the overalls tied around her hips, showing off her narrow waist. Her hair was held back in a plait, and she was carrying a red and black tool box in her hand.

"Alright," Betty said with a small, almost nervous smile as she made her way over to where Jughead and Archie were standing. "So how we going to do this thing? Am I going to have a trial for a few weeks or am I just jumping right in there?" Jughead appreciated that she got straight to the point.

"Well, no, I don't think you need a trial. You can start whenever you want," he told her. Betty's eyebrows pulled together slightly at that.

"I don't want any handouts," she began. "I don't want you just going easy on me because of—because of our history."

"I'm not," Jughead told her quickly. "I just already know your skill. You were always better with cars than me."

"Damn right I was, and probably still am," Betty smirked at him, their eyes locking on each other playfully before both of them faltered. Jughead felt that twinge in his heart, a heaviness in his stomach, that same feeling he got whenever he was around Betty. Archie raised an eyebrow, obviously able to feel the tension between the two that Jughead had hoped wasn't obvious.

Maybe it was just because Archie knew them both so well.

"So...What's happening?" Betty continued after she cleared her throat. "When do you want me to start? Do you need all my tax shit?"

"Yeah, uh," Jughead wasn't too good with the administrative side of things, it was usually dealt with by Mary. "I'll get Mary to call you and figure all that stuff out, she does all of it." Betty nodded. "And you can start whenever you want. We've got the two garages, which you already know—" she nodded again. "And we're a bit behind, we're sharing the work between both of the garages at the moment, while most of the time we have just one garage on the more legnthy repairs where we need them to book in appointment and the other one for the walk ins and warrants and services. So whenever you're ready to start—we're ready for the help."

"Okay, well—"

"Yo, Jug!" Moose came into the garage and then stopped short when he saw Betty. "Betty—hey. What are you..." he trailed off as he saw the tool box in her hand and seemed to actually take in her attire. "You're going to be working here?" He asked, a grin spreading across his face. "That's pretty awesome, I remember you were always on top of shit in here when we were back in high school."

"Yeah," Betty smiled at him, lifting an eyebrow. "How's Midge?" She saw the way Moose's cheeks reddened slightly at the question, and there was a look exchanged between Archie and Jughead that she didn't understand, but she kept her attention on Moose.

"She's good," Moose smiled, it was a private and intimate smile, the kind that was only given about someone that they loved. "Um, anyway, the reason that I'm here," he turned his attention back to Jughead. "I've got another truck that we're not going to be able to get done today, and Kenneth Jonson has said he'll pay an extra two hundred if we can have it finished by the end of the day. It's one of his work trucks and he needs it back pretty bad." Archie hummed out a noise of approval and then looked toward Betty.

"You think you can start now?" He asked the blonde.

"I'm all ready," Betty said, indicating her clothes with an absent-minded wave to her clothes. "Although I'm not going to leave Nancy high and dry since she was so good at giving me a job when I just showed back up in town."

"I can understand that," Jughead stated.

"So I was thinking that I could start today, but just part time on the days that I'm not working with Nancy? I'll give her two weeks notice. I'm sure she'll be able to find someone else to work for her, but I don't want to bail without notice," Betty told Jughead, who nodded.

"Yeah, that's absolutely fine, whatever works for you," Jughead assured her, and both Archie and Moose exchanged amused looks behind Jughead's back, a look that Betty missed. "You wanna take this one then?" He waved a hand at Moose and she nodded.

"Great," Betty turned to Moose, and he handed her the keys.

"Oi, prospect!" Moose shouted out, over the music that was coming from the stereo. Dilton looked up from where he was working, wide eyed and oil smudged on his cheek. "Give me a ride back to the other garage!" Dilton nodded, straightening up and wiping his hands on his overalls. Betty walked over to one of the work benches and put down her tool box, before following Moose and Dilton outside. Archie raised his eyebrows as he turned to Jughead.

"So who's running this place, hm? You or her? You're practically falling over yourself to make sure she stays," Archie snorted. Jughead just punched his friend in the arm and headed towards the front of the garage, pressing a red button that lifted up the roller doors, which simultaneously announced that they were open for business, and also helped to keep the air flow going. Outside, Dilton was sitting in the front seat of one of their courtesy vehicles while Moose was standing near the truck with Betty, looking as though they were involved in a pretty intense conversation that Jughead couldn't hear from where he was standing.

"Hey, Betty," Moose's voice was soft as he approached her before she got into the drivers seat of the BMW. "There's something that I wanted to show you...I guess—maybe, ask you? Well, not necessarily  _you_ , just a girl in general, actually." He looked a little confused as he faltered, and Betty gave him an encouraging smile, patiently waiting. "This..." Moose fumbled around in his pocket before pulling out a black, velvet box from his pocket.

There was no mistaking what it was.

"A ring?" Betty murmured questioningly as she took it from Moose's outstretched hand and popped the little box open.

"Yeah," Moose's cheeks were burning red. "It was my grandmothers ring..."

"And...You're just carrying it around?" Betty prompted as she looked at it. It was big, bigger than something Betty would want on her finger, and it was a sapphire stone, with two smaller diamonds on either side. But it was definitely something that Veronica or Cheryl would love...Or Midge.

"No, I'm—" Moose swallowed hard. "I'm taking it in to the jewelers later today, to get it sized. And then—and then I'm going to propose...I think."

"To Midge?" Betty double checked.

"Of course!" Moose stated. "And I just...I wanted to know what you thought...About the ring, and about...The idea." Betty nodded slowly before snapping the lid of the box closed and handing it back to Moose, who shoved it back in his pocket, not quite treating it with the delicacy it called for, but at least it had the protection of the box. Moose had never been the most gentle guy, but he and Midge had still be good together.

"I think that's great," Betty told him, a smile spreading across her face. Moose's eyes widened in surprise. "And the ring is absolutely beautiful."

"You think?" He asked her, sounding tentatively hopeful.

"Absolutely!" Betty told her, her voice firm and certain. "I know that things haven't always been—you know, ' _on_ ' for you guys, but you always come back to each other. It's probably good that you guys had that time apart as well, because it gave you a chance to see other people, to grow as individuals, and then you've come back together, and it sounds like you know she's the one." Moose was smiling widely by the time she finished, and she was surprised when he lunged in and gave her a tight hug.

"Thank you, Betty," Moose told her, his breath hot against her ear. Betty laughed as she hugged him back.

"And just a word of advice?" Betty said as they broke apart.

"Yeah?" Moose waited expectantly.

"Don't carry that around in your pocket," she told him with a sigh and a small smile. "That is far too valuable to be shoved in your  _jeans_. Take it into the jewelers now and when you pick it back up, take it straight home in the saddle bag of your bike, and put it somewhere  _safe_." Moose grinned again, looking dopily happy.

Dopily in love, was probably the better way to put it.

"Thanks, Betty!" He told her as he backed away from the blonde, toward the courtesy car. "And I hope you and Jughead sort things out soon!" He got into the car as Betty's smile faded and she looked back up toward the garage where Jughead was standing, his thumbs hooked in the front pockets of his jeans, not even trying to hide the fact that he was staring at her. Betty looked away quickly, swallowing hard as she got into the drivers seat of the BMW and turned it on, getting ready to bring it up into the garage.


	22. Chapter 22

It was only two weeks until Polly's due date and she was looking ready to pop. Somehow, she was still managing to look gorgeous, and she claimed that she liked being pregnant. Betty had read about woman enjoying being pregnant—the amount of pregnancy books that she had brought after finding out that Polly was going to be a mother was ridiculous—but she couldn't get her head around it. But she was happy for her sister, and she was making sure to send long emails and regular snapchats to Chic to make sure he knew what was going on, and that their sister was doing just fine. Other than the fact that she was having twins, she was still refusing to find out what gender she was having, no matter how much Betty and Cheryl pleaded, she just laughed and shook her head.

Veronica, on the hand,  _hated_  being pregnant.

She had terrible morning sickness already and she spent half the day in the bathroom, curled up around the toilet bowl. It was lucky that she had her own bathroom at the porn studio that she only shared with a couple of other employees, because she wouldn't want to use the one that the rest of stars of her films used after their shoots. Hermione was already beginning to send maternity clothes through to her, and she was going to be the best looking mama out there, alongside Polly.

Betty had gotten her head around the fact that Polly was pregnant. Her sister was older than her and it was a normal process of life, Betty knew that, so while it still felt weird that Polly was pregnant, she had accepted it. But it was even stranger that one of her friends, someone her  _age_  was pregnant. Once again, she knew that it was a normal process, and plenty of people that she knew from high school and that she was acquainted with had kids, but no one that she was actually close with.

Archie was going to be a  _dad_.

The kid that had lived next door to her, that she had eaten sand with, had tutored when they were in primary school because she wouldn't let him get held back, that had been her first kiss when she was twelve and he decided that it would be a good idea for them to 'do it so that we're all experienced'.

She was pretty sure that's what she was finding harder to understand than Veronica being a mum.

"We're getting old," Betty sighed as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Speak for yourself," Cheryl retorted as she picked up a strawberry from the plastic container in front of her and bit into it, the red bleeding across her lips before her tongue poked out and licked the juice up. "I'm going to be young forever." Betty rolled her eyes at Cheryl before picking up her keys from the counter top. "Shit, where are you going now? I swear I never see you anymore, between your two jobs."

"Sorry," Betty scrunched up her nose. "Just...Trying to keep busy."

"I thought the point of keeping busy was to keep your mind off something? In this case, that something would be Jughead, but hey! You're working with Jughead! So how is that supposed to get your mind off him?" Cheryl raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow, pursing her red lips together. Betty opened her mouth to say something, but she wasn't too sure what to say. In the end, she settled on,

"It's just a job."

"With your ex boyfriend, who you most  _definitely_  till have feelings for, even if you're denying it to everyone including yourself," Cheryl responded, her voice flat. Betty swallowed hard and sighed, tapping the fob of her car key against the opposite palm.

"It's just a job," she repeated, beginning to walk toward the door.

"I'm off to Josie's in a few minutes, so I won't be home for the rest of the night," Cheryl raised her voice. "But we need to hang out—I never see you." Betty felt a guilty pang in her stomach because she was right, she had been working a lot, and she had been spending any free time she had with her sister, trying to help her around the house because Polly refused to get a cleaner, even though Penelope Blossom kept on insisting. Tonight, she didn't have any plans, she was just making a trip out to Veronicas, but she didn't want Cheryl to cancel her plans to stay in with her.

"Yeah, absolutely," Betty nodded and smiled at Cheryl, and obviously Cheryl heard the sincerity in her voice, because she gave her a small smile in response. Betty left the house, not bothering to lock the door behind her as she walked to the garage where her car was parked. She turned it on, stopping to plug her phone into the stereo and find a playlist before reversing down the driveway and accelerating away. In her rear view mirror, she saw Cheryl coming out of the house as well, and she knew that her friend would be heading toward the cherry red Mini Cooper that parked next to her black Camaro in the garage.

It took almost half an hour to get to Veronica's 'studio', which was a pretty long time to get anywhere in Riverdale. But it was on the other side of town and starting out toward the country, and Betty also had to stop and get a shake to  _Pops_ , a mango, strawberry and lime flavour which just sounded kind of weird, but she wasn't one to question a pregnant womans cravings. Behind the counter, Pop Tate had just grinned and whipped the shake up for her, not charging her anything, saying that she had spent more than her fair share of hard earned pocket money there when she was a teenager.

The tyres of her car crunched on the gravel as she parked up alongside a fence and got out of the car. She walked toward the door on the side of the building tentatively, given she had only been there a couple of times, and none of those times had been when the studio was actually...In session. It wasn't as though she was a prude, she had watched her fair share of porn when she went through dry spells, or just didn't want to go through the hassle of dealing with a guy and someone elses emotions.

But it was a little bit different to see it happening live.

Betty walked in through the side door, which lead down a narrow hallway, past a couple of rooms, until she heard noises coming from the end room. She wasn't too sure if that's where she  _wanted_  to be heading, because it was working hours, but she got a text from Veronica, telling her to come to the end of the hallway and turn right, so she did. There were a handful of people in the next area, which was a lot more open plan, including two men in Serpents jackets that she didn't recognize. There were three men with cameras and there was low music playing, and the closer Betty got, she became aware of some breathy—and very fake sounding—moans were coming from the side. Betty was surprised to see a girl she recognize, laying on the kitchen table that had been set up in the fake kitchen in the corner of the room. Her name was Ginger, and she had been on cheerleading squad back in high school.

And seeing her getting eaten out by a dark haired girl while a guy was bracing himself over her, driving his cock into her mouth over and over again, definitely wasn't something that she thought she was ever going to witness.

"Betty!" Veronica called, although she was doing it in a slightly hushed voice. Betty diverted her eyes and quickly walked over to her friend. "You're a life saver," Veronica sighed as she took the drink from Betty's hand and took a long sip through the straw.

"Are we..." Betty glanced around, eyes skimming over the three on the kitchen table before coming back to Veronica. "Are we okay? Like talking?" She was keeping her voice quiet but Veronica just fluttered a hand in the air.

"It's okay," she said after she swallowed her mouthful. "We edit in music over the videos, and all of the sounds are amplified, coming from them," she gestured over to the three before getting out of the seat she was in. She stretched, bracing one hand on her lower back and wincing. "I hurt," she muttered. "I fucking hurt everywhere."

"Polly started getting those massages for pregnant mothers that she said helped her out," Betty said as the two girls began walking out of the room.

"Yeah, I've got one booked in next week," Veronica grumbled. "Archie said the other night that he wants, like, four kids." Betty smothered her grin at the pained expression on her friends face. "I don't even know if I'm going to be able to make it through this one." Veronica's expression suddenly changed and she smiled widely. "Archiekins!" She cried out. Betty looked up and saw Archie and Jughead coming out of the hallway. Neither of the boys looked like they were particularly happy and Veronica pursed her lips together as she glanced toward Betty. "Things aren't going so well—you know, with the...Deaths happening," her voice was hushed and she looked understandably pained. "It's not just the fucking idiots in town that think it's them, some of the other biker clubs are turning on them as well." Betty's eyes widened as she looked back at the two boys, who were right in front of them now.

"Hey," Archie murmured as he reached down and gave Veronica a quick kiss on the mouth before resting his hand on her rounded stomach. "I see she's got you running her errands, getting her smoothies."

"It's fine," Betty assured him with a smile, nudging Veronica with her hip. "Anything for my next neice or nephew." Archie's smile widened, and it smoothed out the the frown lines on his face. He looked more and more like his father everytime Betty saw him, and she could just imagine that his kids were going to be the same. "Anyway," Betty glanced quickly toward Jughead before looking back at the happy couple in front of her. "I'll get going, leave you guys to it."

"I'll walk you out," Jughead said, his voice low but firm. Veronica arched an eyebrow as she looked between them, and Betty tried not to let the way his voice shook her show on her face.

"Alright," Betty murmured.

"Thanks again for the drink," Veronica said with a smile, waving her drink in front of her, and Archie leaned forward to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Safe drive home," Archie told her and Betty nodded, before moving to Jughead's side. Jughead nodded his goodbyes to the two, and then turned to walk alongside her. He was wearing dark coloured jeans, and his Serpents jacket over a white tee-shirt, that stretched over his muscled chest. Betty swallowed hard as they walked down the hallway, and out the side door that she had used to come in.

"I'll escort you home," Jughead told her, nodding over to where his bike was parked.

"Oh—it's fine," Betty assured him. "I can—"

"I'll escort you home," Jughead repeated, tipping his hair to the side so that a few strands of dark hair fell over one eye. There was a small smile pulling at his lips and a twinkle in his eye, as though he knew what he was doing to her.

"Alright," Betty nodded, and turned around, stalking over to her car.


	23. Chapter 23

Betty wasn't too sure  _why_  Jughead was following her home, but it did make her stomach twist up in knots as they approached her place. Cheryl wasn't home, which meant that the two of them were going to be there alone. Her and Jughead had managed to come to at least  _some_  semblance of an agreement when she was working at the garage, that they would be civil to each other, but not exactly friendly. Jughead definitely wanted there to be something more, he made that very obvious, but Betty was trying to keep her distance.

But she was starting to loose track of the reason  _why_.

The longer she was back in Riverdale, the more that it felt like she was home. She had been gone for years, and even though she had loved her job and her life back in Los Angeles,  _this_  was her home. This was where Polly was, where her nephew or neice was going to be. This is where Veronica and Archie, and their baby was going to be. This was where the girl that Cheryl had been in love with since they were kids and Kevin lived. This was where her history was, where her roots were driven into the ground.

Betty had come back into Riverdale with the intention of leaving and not looking back once Polly had everything she needed, but that wasn't going to be anywhere near as easy as it had been last time.

Betty let out a shaky breath as she pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine of her car. She heard the rev of Jughead's bike as he pulled up behind her, and she watched in her rear view mirror as he swung his leg over the seat of the bike and took of his helmet, shaking out his hair. It was a subconscious gesture, running her tongue over her lower lip as she watched his black hair flop adorable over his forehead, and as soon as she caught herself doing the movement, she forced herself to stop and swallow, before moving to get out of the car. Jughead walked toward her car, and he opened up the door as she was gathering her bag from the passenger seat.

"Thanks," Betty said with a tight smile as she got out of the car, Jughead closing the door behind her firmly. She pressed down the button on the fob on her key chain, the locks of the door sliding into place before walking toward the front door. Jughead was close behind her, and Betty tried to force herself to walk normally, but her footsteps were still jerky as she tried to figure out what her next move was going to be. "Uh—" Betty turned around to face Jughead as she reached the front door. "Thanks for—driving me home, I guess."

"No problem," Jughead answered with a small smile. Betty nodded slowly and unlocked the front door, her hand resting on the doorknob. Jughead took a step up, so that he was on the same level as her, and he looked down at the blonde. Betty swallowed hard as she looked up at him, trying to keep her breathing steady. "Can I come in?" He asked, his voice low.

"I, um, I—why?" Betty stuttered out, completely giving away how nervous she was, even though she was trying to force herself to remain calm. They had been doing so well in the past couple of weeks, working together and not letting themselves get too close to each other. Although...Betty wasn't stupid enough to ignore the way that Jughead looked at her. And she knew that she had been caught staring over at him a few times as well, judging from the knowing looks that Archie had given her.

But she was  _trying_  to ignore it all.

"You know why," Jughead said, his voice firm and low as he reached out, his hand gently touching her hip. Betty licked her lips, and Jughead's eyes followed the movement. "Look, Betty..." he took in a deep breath, and stepped closer to her, so that there was barely a gap between them. "I don't understand why you keep pretending like you're leaving Riverdale again...Like this isn't where you belong...Like it's completely over between us." Betty clenched her jaw, her mind in a million different places, her thoughts all muddled up in her head.

And then Jughead calmed them.

He leaned down and pressed their lips together, and her mind cleared, because everything always made sense and lined up in her universe when she and Jughead were together like this. Jughead's kiss was soft and gentle to begin with, as though he didn't want to scare her away. One of his hands was still at his side, and the other hand was resting on her hip, not testing the limits just yet.

But when Betty didn't push him away, Jughead's kiss became firmer, and the hand that was at his side lifted to push open the front door. Without parting their mouths, Jughead lead them inside, and Betty moved with him. He kicked the door shut behind them, and then his complete focus was back on the blonde in front of him.

He had been worried when he had kissed her that she might push him away, but now she was the one tracing his lower lip with her tongue and her hands came up to grip his shirt firmly in both hands. Jughead's mind flickered up to her room, but when his hands both went to her hips and slid underneath the shirt that she was wearing, his thumbs brushing over her hip bones, there was a needy sound that came from her throat and Jughead didn't want to pause the moment they were having to navigate the stairs.

"Shit!" Betty squeaked out as Jughead's hands moved to her ass, lifting her easily off the ground. The movement jostled them and their mouths disconnected, and Betty was breathing heavily as she looked down at him. Her pupils were blown, and Jughead could feel himself hard in his jeans, which was pressing awkwardly against Betty, now that he was carrying her. They stayed like that for a moment, staring at each other, breathing hard against each other. Then Betty dipped her head in a nod, and then she was leaning down to kiss him again, and Jughead was walking forward clumsily, toward the kitchen. They made it to the kitchen and Jughead put Betty down on the counter, shoving aside the magazines and mail that Cheryl had probably left there, barely paying any attention as they fell to the ground.

"God,  _Betty_ ," Jughead sighed as she pulled herself right to the edge of the kitchen counter, so her ass was right on the edge, and when she put her legs around his waist, she was lined up directly with the bulge in his jeans. He let out a hiss as she rolled her hips forward, and he kissed her hard on the mouth as he reached between them, undoing the zipper and button of his jeans, and then reaching for Betty's as well. There was a slightly awkward pause as Betty had to lean back from Jughead to brace her hands against the counter top to lift her ass, so that they could maneuver her jeans and underwear off. They got caught around her ankles, and Jughead rolled his eyes as he had to bend forward to take off her shoes so that he could take off her jeans, and Betty couldn't help but laugh at the fumble. Jughead paused and looked up at her through his thick eyelashes, and in that moment, he looked so much like the teenager that she had fallen in love with, her heart felt as though it stopped beating.

"C'mere," Betty murmured as she managed to kick her jeans off, her hand reaching out to grasp his neck and pull him back in. Jughead kissed her with everything he had, all the love and desperation that Betty had brought back to the surface, and she could feel that in the way his hand was shaking where it was cupping her cheek. His other hand rested on her hip, underneath her shirt so that it was on her bare skin. Even though it was clear how much he wanted her in that moment, how aroused he was, he was still touching her like she was something precious, something to be cared for and gentle with. He pushed up her shirt and exposed that tattoo.

"I was so scared that you would get this removed," Jughead told her, his voice hoarse, catching in his throat as he looked up at her. "You have no idea—"

"I could never," Betty told him earnestly, and that was the honest truth. No matter what had happened between them, no matter the distance and the years, she would never be able to erase that tattoo on her hip. Jughead leaned down, pressing a soft kiss against the letter, before lifting his head back up so that their lips came together. Betty rolled her hips, wiggling around, and from the height of the bench, she was in the perfect position to rub her lower lips against his hard cock. He rubbed his cock up and down her lips, the head of his cock catching against her clit a few times and making her shiver and curl her toes.

"God, Betty," Jughead murmured, nibbling on her lower lip, shifting his face so that his nose brushed over her cheek, placing a few more kisses over her jaw. "I have no idea how you keeping feeling better and better." Betty didn't manage a reply as his lips reached the hinge of her jaw, sucking on the skin by her ear, making her keen loudly. Jughead sucked until there was a red mark, and he knew that there was going to be a hickey there tomorrow, a permanent mark on her ivory skin that he had been there. Her breathing was heavy as Jughead pulled away from Betty, smiling at the whimper she let out. He fumbled around in the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet, flipping it open and pulling out the condom that he had there, giving himself a mental pat on the back for making sure he was always prepared.

"Come  _on_ ," Betty sounded impatient as she waited for him to straighten up and roll on the condom. Jughead gave her a small smile before leaning forward to kiss her again. His tongue in her mouth distracted her momentarily, so when his cock slid deep inside of her, she was completely caught off guard and her mouth feel open and her body jerked. "Shit, shit, shit," Betty mumbled as Jughead rolled his hips, entering her again and again. From the way that she was sitting, perched on the edge of the counter, Jughead was able to fill her up and hit angles inside her that had stars exploding at the edge of her vision.

" _Fuck_ ," Jughead groaned as Betty's body stopped shivering and she began moving with Jughead, her hips jerking forward with each of his thrusts. Her hips starting moving even quicker and Jughead could feel her walls fluttering around him, indicating that she was getting closer to her orgasm. Jughead's movements got quicker, and he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, his thumb pressing behind her ear. She seemed to go limp at the contact, letting him take over, pound into her over and over again.

She came first, and Jughead didn't take long after as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers, the pair of them breathing quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, or today is that day for a lot of you, the 10th.  
> Please be kind to each other, people have so much going on in their heads that just isn't obvious from the outside.  
> Much love xx


	24. Chapter 24

"You know," Betty began with a wry smile. "I had a go at Cheryl just the other week for fooling around on this couch when there's a bedroom right upstairs," she let out a laugh and then her eyes widened in horror. "Oh gross," she muttered. "I hope her and Josie cleaned it up. Or we're, like, mixing with all their fluids and shit." Jughead let out a laugh and he couldn't help but cuddle Betty's body closer to his.

"A bit late to worry about it now, since we slept here last night," he noted.

After they had both come down from their sex high, Jughead had cleaned himself off and tossed away the condom, and then had come back to where Betty was still sitting on the bench and picked her up. His eyes had been hesitant as he had watched her, as though waiting for her to flip, to storm off, maybe to repeat her spiel about how this was a mistake and she had just got caught up in the moment.

Betty's heart hurt a little at that.

She hadn't been fair.

She still didn't know what she was doing, but she had a strong feeling that she wasn't going to be leaving Riverdale anytime soon.

And her high school boyfriend was a big part of her reason to stay.

He had carried her into the lounge, and then left her there to go upstairs and grab a duvet off her bed. They had both fallen asleep, and woken up in the early hours of the morning. They had been woken by the sun coming up in through the windows, since they hadn't shut the curtains. It was nearly an hour later now, and they were still cuddled together on the couch, the sun was slowly sinking in the sky and the room was bathed in the soft light of the evening sun, oranges and yellows painting the walls and furniture. Jughead was wearing his briefs, which he had put back on last night, and Betty had her underwear and a shirt on.

It didn't escape her notice that his thumb kept rubbing over that tattoo on her hip, almost subconsciously, as though he was reassuring himself that it was still there.

"I'm glad those two found each other," Jughead said quietly, and Betty made a small questioning noise. "Cheryl and Josie?"

"Oh, right," Betty smiled and nodded. "Yeah, me too. Cheryl had been completely obsessed with Josie when we were back in high school, and she had always taken it hard that they never had a chance when they were younger. I think it's cool that they've come back together," she went quiet and she shifted slightly. There were definitely similarities in what she had just said about Cheryl and Josie and then herself and Jughead. Jughead didn't comment for a moment, one of his hands lifted to stroke through her blonde hair.

"I remember them kissing a few times," he commented, his voice soft. "I remember them together that time we went to that house party just down the block from Mr Weatherbee's place." Betty's eyes widened as she remembered the night that he was talking about, and she laughed. Their principal had always been an asshole, and when someone had decided that it was a good idea to break into their principal's backyard and party in his pool given he was away for the weekend. There had been nearly twenty students that had climbed over the fence of Mr Weatherbee's backyard and invaded his pool. The place had ended up completely trashed, and it had never been pinned down who it was that had made the place such a mess, so there had been no arrests for breaking and entering, which had been lucky.

There had only been a few things that Betty remembered clearly from that night, given how drunk she had been. One of those things had been Cheryl and Josie, practically mounting each other in the pool, a bottle of vodka in Cheryl's hand, holding it above the water, and biting at Josie's neck. The other thing had happened later on, back at her place. Her parents had been out, and so she and Jughead had ended up in the spa.

"You thinking about what happened later that night?" Jughead asked quietly, and Betty couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"Maybe," she answered, but the twinkle in her eyes answered that question. They had been kissing in the spa, and then they had ended up having sex—the first time they had ever had sex, Betty loosing her virginity to him. "It was so romantic, having sex for the first time in my mum and dad's spa," she teased him, and Jughead let out a light laugh, but there was something that sounded off about the laugh, and Betty twisted her head back to look up at him. The smile was gone from his face, and he swallowed hard, his eyes shifting to look away from her.

"I didn't know what to do, Bets," he told her, his voice hoarse, and Betty pursed her lips together as she realized where his mind was. "I was young— _we_  were young—and I was just...I was taken by surprise."

"Juggie..." Betty began, although she didn't know what she was going to say.

"I was so in love with you," Jughead continued, complete conviction in his voice, and Betty's stomach squeezed. "And I—I wanted us to have the baby. I don't know—I mean, I  _knew_  we weren't ready. Shit, and I was so scared at the time—sometimes now I still get scared, thinking back to that afternoon...When you told me. But I just...I got so wrapped up in how much I loved you, how much I had imagined us being together as we got older—and I just thought that we would be okay. It was a stupid idea, and more time that went by, the more I realized that, but at the time...I kind of just—just liked the idea of us having a family together." Betty could feel tears in her eyes and she let out a shaky breath through her nose.

"I know I was...I was hard on you," Betty said quietly, and she felt Jugheads hands tighten around her. "I didn't..." she took in another deep breath. "I didn't mean to be." Jughead licked his lips and his voice was even quieter as he continued.

"I just always felt...I always felt like maybe you blamed me," he murmured, and Betty's heart thudded in her chest, feeling that awful, heavy feeling of guilt settling over her. She knew that he had probably felt that way, she had just been so caught up in her own feelings at the time that she couldn't talk through it with him.

"It wasn't that, Juggie," Betty said quietly, squeezing his arm that was wrapped around her. "I just...I wasn't  _ready_. Neither of us were, you know? Like—shit. A baby? Us, as parents? Fuck, I couldn't even comprehend the magnitude of that, you know? I mean, even know...With Veronica being pregnant? Archie going to be a dad? That still just feels so crazy. We could never have managed," she paused to take in another deep breath, and she was glad that Jughead was looking at her again, his arms tightening even more around her body. "And then with my dad suddenly getting sick, and finals, and applying for colleges, and—" she broke off as she remembered waking up in the middle of the night, feeling sticky between her legs.

She knew what it was straight away, she knew what had happened. She had tried not to panic, and had gotten out of bed, despite that ache in her lower half of the body, and had woken up Polly. Her mother was medicated and deep asleep, just like she had been ever since her father had passed away, and Polly had wanted to wake her, had wanted to call an ambulance, but Betty had convinced her to just drive her to the hospital instead.

"My body just wasn't ready," Betty managed to say, her voice choked. "And then...And then I just felt like I had let you down."

" _No_ ," Jughead told her firmly, and he pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. She knew that he was right, but that didn't change the way she felt. Just like how she felt guilty about leaving Jughead all those years ago, even though she knew that she had just been a scared girl, acting like many others would. Just how Jughead felt like she blamed him, and maybe he partly blamed himself as well.

"I don't know," Betty sniffed and tried to steady her voice, lifting her chin. "Being back here just brings everything back, you know? I needed to get away from it all, I needed to have some space—grow into my own person, away from everything and everyone."

"Except Cheryl," Jughead stated with a slight purse of his lips.

"That wasn't intentional," Betty sighed. "She just showed up after a year and never left. You ever tried to tell Cheryl 'no'?" Jughead snorted, and even though it wasn't a smile, she was glad that he seemed to be loosening slightly.

"What about now?" Jughead asked, his eyes staring at her intently. "You can have the job that you love here, at our garage—you know that the guys like having you there. "And you're surrounded by people who fucking love you. There's Polly, and Veronica, and Archie, and there's  _me_. Have you thought about staying?"

"Of course I have," Betty began. "I just...I haven't made up my mind yet." Jughead nodded slowly, one of his hands sliding up and down her bare arm. The sensation of his fingers gliding over her skin sent shivers through her body, and even though it made her nerves spark, it was also a soothing feeling.

A familiar one.

"What's there to decide?" Jughead raised an eyebrow at her. "I don't understand—" the intimate moment was broken by a scream outside, and Betty and Jughead both jerked up where they were sitting. Jughead grabbed for his phone, which was on the small table beside the couch. "It's just after seven—who the fuck is up right now?" Betty was scrambling to get off couch and grab for her pants, which they had brought in the from the kitchen and left on an arm chair.

"That sounded like Cheryl," Betty explained quickly as she almost tripped over, trying to pull on her pants. Jughead was up quickly at that comment as well, and then they were both walking toward the front door. It swung open before they reached it, and Cheryl was standing there with wide eyes.

"Oh great," her voice was a lot more high pitched than usual. "You're here," she waved her hand at Jughead and then gulped in a deep breath. "You need to see this," she said to both of them, flinging the door wide open and stalking back outside. She didn't look anywhere near as put together as she usually did, but that wasn't surprising, given she had come from a sleepover at Josie's place and it was in the early hours of the morning. Jughead and Betty followed her outside, until they were standing in front of the house.

Their eyes widened as they looked toward where Cheryl was pointing.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment, let me know what you think :)


End file.
